


N-Force Vol. 1

by MrLsSidekick



Series: Nintendo Superhero AUs [4]
Category: Captain N: The Game Master, Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, 光神話 | Kid Icarus (Video Games), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series
Genre: Alternate Universe, It's a superhero story - it had to have a retconn eventually, Retcon Timeline
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2019-11-09 02:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 36,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17992964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrLsSidekick/pseuds/MrLsSidekick
Summary: Something's amiss in the happy-go-lucky world of Nintendo, and it needs some heroes to save it.An alternate universe where the main characters of the games on Nintendo consoles are reimagined as superheroes!





	1. Introduction - A New Timeline and an Explanation

So, some of you may be confused by this, considering that N-Force Volume 1 was already something that existed, and had, like, double the chapters than this. I can explain.

 

For a while now, I was… how do I say it? Disappointed?... by the second arc of N-Force, the Fallen Angel arc. It was too dark and depressing too soon into the story, I feel, and it was very much a product of my mindset at the time of writing it. So, for a long while, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to retcon it. This is that way.

 

For those that read the original chapters, you all will notice that Chapters 1 - 7 are relatively untouched. It’s from chapter 8 and forwards that things change. Now, this might cause some belief that the rest of the stories from the Gaiden and Smoochtober are now noncanon. Not so. While some details, namely that of “You Make My Dreams Come True” and “Confessions of a Nature Goddess”, are affected, almost all of the other stories were so off in the future that they were fairly unaffected by the early events, and, as such, will remain unchanged, with the new set of events still leading to the circumstances of these other stories.

 

In addition, the monster-of-the-week chapters that were relegated to Gaiden will be brought back into this volume, with Gaiden being reserved for the more non-adventure interactions between the team and other characters, or the stories focused on the other characters.

 

I hope that all of this will help lead to more frequent updates of N-Force, rather than just, like, month-long bursts and then silence for 5 months. And I hope you all enjoy what lies in store!

 

-Sean MrLsSidekick


	2. Chapter I - Big Trouble in Lunar Sanctum

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected attack sets our story in motion, as the Underworld Army makes a return to Skyworld.

It’s not that Pit despised going to the Lunar Sanctum, far from it. Every visit to the vast lunar base was like being like a kid in a candy store to him. He knew the backstory behind every item stored there, and how much damage each could exactly do. He had learned all of this in his spare time, just hanging around Palutena’s Skyland temple; there never was really much to do, not since the gods swore off from interfering in the affairs of the humans in the world below.

And in this revealed the reason why Pit despised going to the Lunar Sanctum so much: it felt like busy work. In the days before the ban, Pit had been a hero to the humans, fighting the forces of the Underworld Army, saving lives. He didn’t do it for the glory, more for just doing the right thing, helping to make the world a better place. It gave Pit a warm feeling inside. But ever since the ban, it only ever felt like he was running errands for Lady Palutena, and not doing anything of worth; “Oh Pit, can you deliver a message down to Lord Poseidon?” or “Pit, can you clean up the temple a bit?” or “Train the infantry Pit! You never know when they’ll come in handy!” These tasks weren’t necessarily terrible, when paired with major events like fighting the Hewdraw or Twinbellows, or leveling wave after wave of Monoeye, Specnose, and Mik, but now they just seemed tedious.

Much like the current task at hand: warn Arlon of a potential Underworld Army attack. The thought of that would have excited Pit were it not for all the other supposed attacks that were coming, each one turning out to be duds: the attack on the Temple, the attack on Viridi’s Sanctuary, the attack on the Lunar Sanctum (there were no less than 2 previous supposed attacks.) At this point, Pit was beginning to think that the Underworld Army would never be a threat again. It had been over 25 years since anyone last heard from Hades, the leader of the Army, and its de facto leader, Medusa, was under constant watch, as were all her lieutenants. There was the possibility of the army rebuilding on the Earth, but no godly activity had been picked up from there since the ban, so an army amassing like that couldn’t be happening, probably. Regardless, Pit still had to warn Arlon, so up to the Lunar Sanctum he went.

The Sanctum itself was immense. It wasn’t called the Lunar Sanctum due to its being on the Moon, but rather from the fact that it looked like a second moon, both in size and appearance. Fortunately, the mortals couldn’t see the Sanctum, though some have in past, but they were written off as just experiencing the phenomenon of parallax. The base itself served as, essentially, the armory of the gods: a place where all of the powerful weapons could be stored without potentially cause more damage than is necessary. Most of the weapons were material objects, even if they did have a mind of their own sometimes, like the Vrachiolia Ganti, the Ilektrika Vronti, or the Treis Iereis Thisavroi. However, there was one living weapon type, of which two were stored in the Sanctum: the Chaos Kin, a creature supposedly made from chaos itself, and serves no other purpose to bring all to its source. For one to get out could be disastrous, for both apocalyptic.

The fact that he could have been in near proximity with any and all of the above both excited him and disappointed him: excited because he could fanboy over all of it, disappointed because he couldn’t go in, he was to just deliver the message to Arlon, who was expecting him at the door, as he always was. Arlon the Serene, the lesser god in charge of the Lunar Sanctum, was a tall purple-skinned, white-haired and mustached god of refined tastes. For someone constantly surrounded by weapons, he was often very peacefully, and wouldn’t attack unprovoked. Should the fight come down to it though, Arlon could very well hold his own. He was a no-nonsense kind of fellow, often trading jokes for refined manners and respect, though sarcasm and dry wit were not uncommon for him.

Pit landed in front of Arlon on the base and held up his hand for a high five. “Arlon, my man, how’s things?” Bless his heart he tries.

Arlon ignored the upraised hand and stated. “Ah, Pit, Lady Palutena had informed me to be expecting you. You come bearing news for me I understand?”

Pit, still with his hand raised, said, “You know, Arlon, my dream is that one day I’m going to come here and you’re going to high five me back. Make the dream come true today, Arlon,  _ don’t let the dream be just a dream _ .”

“Dreams are for unconsciousness, Pit, and I don’t let them intervene in my waking state. Now, your news.”

Pit let his hand drop. “Fine. Lady Palutena said to tell you that supposedly another Underworld Army attack is going to happen here soon, so keep your guards up.”

“Ah, so another one is supposed to happen,” Arlon said, chuckling, “I’ll be sure to take extra care for the insurmountable numbers of Hades’ minions to be coming my way.”

“Honestly. I mean, sometimes, just once, I wish that it didn’t turn out to be a dud, that one day the Underworld Army would come back so I’m not stuck doing busy work.”

“I’ll put that in to Lady Palutena. Any further news?”

“Not today Arlon. So with that, back I go to Palutena. Later, Arlon!”

Arlon didn’t reply, simply turning back and walking towards the entrance to the Sanctum. Pit, unphased by the lack of a response, started walking backward and finger gunning until he reached the end of the platform, where he would normally walk off and start flying back. This time, however, right as he reached the edge, a large boom that shook the entire Lunar Sanctum occurred, knocking Pit off his footing and briefly sent him falling back down towards the clouds, but he swiftly recovered. As he did, he looked around at the skies and noticed Arlon doing the same. The skies were slowly turning dark, as swarms of hundreds upon hundreds of Monoeyes flooded the skies.

“You had to wish it today didn’t you?” Arlon remarked. “Pit, you go towards the source of the explosion, I’ll try to get the defenses up as fast as possible, then join you.

“On it!” Pit replied as he flew off at top speed around the Sanctum, pulling out his bow to take pot shots at any passing enemy. He also tapped on the golden laurel crown on his head. When he did the voice of Palutena rang through his mind. “Pit? What’s going on? You never use this anymore.”

“UNDERWORLD ARMY, LADY PALUTENA! THEY’RE BACK, FOR REAL THIS TIME!”

 

* * *

 

Palutena couldn’t honestly believe it herself. The Underworld Army, returning after all this time? Impossible.

“What?!? Ah, well, I would imagine it’s forces have majorly dwindled in numbers since you last fought them. Let me pull up my view to see.” The tall green haired goddess of light did just that, and to her surprise, found the army to be immensely more than what she had expected. “Oh my.”

“Yeah, majorly dwindled my ass!”

“PIT! LANGUAGE! There could be kids reading.”

“Sorry, Lady Palutena!”

“So what’s the course of action?

“I’m headed to the source of a big explosion Arlon and I heard just a minute ago! Arlon’s going to turn on the defenses to prevent any further damage, and then join me there!”

“Alright, be safe Pit! I’ll try to provide any assistance I can!”

 

* * *

 

“Well, I wouldn’t mind you wiping out all of the Monoeyes for me,” Pit remarked.

“Sure thing, would you like that before or after the platoon of centurions carrying you exactly where you need to be?” Palutena shot back, chuckling.

“Some help,” Pit muttered, taking some more pot shots at a passing Specnose. As much as he hated the work assigned to him, he could never hate Palutena, she always served as someone like a big sister to him; they could nag at each other, or joke around a bit harshly, but they always knew it was all in jest. It was a unique relationship that Pit had noted didn’t really happen with the other gods and their respective seconds in command.

Pit finally reached the site of the explosion and saw a sight that he should have seen coming. The Lunar Sanctum is located in space, a vacuum, which when exposed to a space with air, creates suction. And when suction occurs, all objects nearby get dragged towards it. This is what was happening with some of the most dangerous weapons that the gods knew of.

“Oh no, this is a not good,” commented Pit, as he flew in through the hole in the side of the base. Acclimating himself to his new environment, he realized that he was inside what appeared to be a container for a live creature, currently unoccupied. Pit only knew of one living creature to be stored on the Lunar Sanctum, and his mind began to fall to worry very quickly. As much as he didn’t want to, he looked to his right and saw another enclosure, storing the second Chaos Kin. “Uhh… Lady Palutena?”

The voice in Pit’s head echoed to life once more. “Yes, Pit?”

“I think one of the Chaos Kin may be loose.”

There was silence for a bit on the other end. Then Palutena’s voice said, gravely, “Pit you need to find that Chaos Kin and make sure it hasn’t escaped to the Earth below.”

Before Pit could respond, he noticed that there was a Mik fiddling around with the lock of the other enclosure. The door to the enclosure Pit was in was already open, so he dashed out the door, replying to Lady Palutena, “Lady Palutena that’ll have to wait, because it may be better to later have to deal with one than with two!”

“You’re right Pit! Stop that Mik! Hopefully, Arlon puts up the defenses before it can get off the base.”

Pit shot an arrow at the Mik, managing to kill it, but not before the lock clicked open, opening the door to the enclosure. “NO NONONONONONO” Pit ran to the door and tried to close and lock it once again, but a dark energy blast made him jump back. He looked in the door and saw the Chaos Kin, tail primed and running fully towards the door. “NONONONONO” Pit screamed, jumping out of the way of the barreling creature. It had the appearance of a large scorpion with one giant eye on the middle of its forehead. Pit sighed at the momentary safety but too late realized that it had fixated on the corpse of the Mik. “OH NO DON’T EA-” Too late. It had already begun feeding.

Knowing that nothing could stop its feeding, Pit realized he had to prevent this thing from leaving, so he quickly locked the door to the other enclosure with the giant gaping hole in the wall. That also stopped the outflow of weapons through the suction, many of which now clattered to the ground. Pit picked up one near to him, the Klab Aigokeron, a silver club with the face of Capricorn on the end, and strapped it on his back, before pulling out his bow again and drawing it.

“Well, a Chaos Kin, wow, I did not expect to be meeting you today when I got up this morning. It’s an honor, truly, I’m a big fan of your work! Well, not, like, a fan in that sense of the word, but, like, I’ve read a lot on you, and, hoo wee, you’ve done some stuff.”

“Pit, you know it can’t really understand you, right?” Palutena’s voice chimed in.

“Oh, I know, it’s just been a while since I’ve gotten to pre-battle quip, so I’m taking this opportunity.”

Palutena chuckled. “Fair enough.”

By this point the Chaos Kin had finished eating and turned around, to meet an arrow directly to its eye. “HA, BETCHA DIDN’T SEE THAT ONE COMING!” Pit quipped, rewarding himself with a victory fist bump at a quip well lashed. However, Pit also didn’t see something coming: the Chaos Kin, who was now barrelling towards him blindly. “Oh poop,” was all Pit could say before he realized he had to jump, and jump he did, almost completely over the Chaos Kin. He didn’t completely make it over, however, and ended up clinging onto the back of the Chaos Kin’s tail, which was now thrashing violently. Pit held on for his dear life though, and started screaming.

“Well,” Palutena chimed in, chuckling at the poor young angel’s situation, “looks like you’ve got yourself in quite the pickle there.”

“I WANT TO GET OFF MR. CHAOS KIN’S WILD RIDE!”

“Then let go!”

“CAN’T!”

“Why not?”

“SCARED!”

“Oh come on now Pit you’ve stared the God of Death right in the face before and now you’re scared of the equivalent of a mechanical bull?”

“MECHANICAL BULLS NEVER TRIED TO SHOOT DEATH LASERS AT ME BEFORE!”  
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

“NOT HELPING LADY PALUTENA!”

By this point, Palutena was full on laughing at the situation. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop,” she sighed, trying to stifle her laughter.

The Chaos Kin had been charging down the halls of the Lunar Sanctum for some time now, not really knowing where it was going, due to its blindness, and preoccupied with shaking Pit off of its tail. The path it followed led the Kin and its unwitting passenger into a large chamber, where Arlon was dealing with some Underworld Army grunts. When they were soundly defeated, Arlon looked up and noticed the humorous sight and simply remarked, “Oh my.”

Pit heard Arlon and yelled out to him, “ARLON, HELP ME!”

“That, young Pit, is a request that cannot be done. There is no helping you as a being.”

“ARLON!”

“Though I must say you do seem to be handling this situation quite well, so I’ll leave you to it.”

“ _ ARLON!!!! _ ”

“Oh, alright. Now, I’m going to see if you can control the Cha-” But before Arlon could finish his plan, the Chaos Kin managed to throw Pit forward and off of his tail, straight into a wall. “Well, never mind then.”

Pit slowly stood up, rubbing his head a bit, letting out an “Owwwww” before shaking the dust off and pulling out the Klab Aigokeron. “Alright, got any other plans?”

Palutena chimed in with “Oh! I can place a trap down in the center of the room! It should stop the Chaos Kin right in its tracks. All you two need to do is get it in it!”

“Can do!” Pit exclaimed.

“Consider it done,” added Arlon. “Oh, and it is a pleasure to hear from you again Lady Palutena.”

The battle had started up again, with the Chaos Kin running towards the voices it was hearing. As the angel and the god dodged dark energy blast after dark energy blast, the conversation continued.  
“Likewise Arlon! How is life on the Sanctuary going for you?”

“Relatively uninteresting. Save for today of course. If only someone hadn’t wished for some more action,” Arlon remarked, with a pointed glare at Pit.

“Hey! How was I supposed to know that today would be the one day that the Underworld Army decides to come back?”

“What’s this about wanting more action Pit?” teased Palutena. “What, was being my messenger boy getting too boring for you?”

“No! Not at all Lady Palutena!”

“Should I put in that request of yours to Lady Palutena now, Pit?”

“A request? Pit, you didn’t have to go through Arlon, you could have just come to me! You know that.”

“Ugh, I can’t take this verbal attack on two fronts! It’s bad enough when it’s just from one of you, but both is unbearable! I surrender! I surrender!”

“Ha ha! A battle well won! Nice combat Arlon!”

“The same to you, Lady Palutena.”

“Oh, are you two done yet? We have a more important battle to fight here.”

“The young Pit is right, for once.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN FOR ONCE?”

“Arlon has a point there, Pit.”

“Come on, Lady Palutena, can’t you be on my side for once?”

“I will be when you stop complaining about being my messenger!”

“Ugh.”

During all the fighting and dodging and talking and the like, the two fighters and the Kin and somehow manage to line themselves up fairly nicely for a plan to work.

“Alright,” Arlon stated, “I have an idea. Lady Palutena, I will need you to set up the trap now.”

“Done and done,” Palutena answered, doing so.

“Now Pit, I need you to ready the Klab Aigokeron, and get into a batter’s stance.”

“Okay.” Pit did so.

“Now, when I jump out of the way, I need you to swing as hard as you can.”

“Alright… WAIT WHAT? YOU’RE CRAZY!”

“If you swing hard enough it should knock the Kin back into the trap.”

“I SAID YOU’RE CRAZY!”

“Think of it this way, Pit,” added Palutena, “if you manage to do this, you can finally make a baseball quip as you’ve always wanted.”

This was something that Pit didn’t think of, and weighed heavily on his judgment. If something seems impossible, then the quip seems ten times cooler if it actually goes well. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

Arlon just sighed. “Sometimes I wonder if you really do have an avian brain to match your wings. Get ready to swing.”

Pit readied his stance. “...HEY, WHAT DID YO-”

“NOW PIT!”

As Arlon jumped out of the way, Pit had to very quickly acclimate himself to the new situation while also thinking of a good quip. “Uh-uhh- BEANBALL!” Pit screamed as he swung as hard as he could. The club made contact with the Chaos Kin and sent it flying backward, spinning in the air until it landed right in the trap, stopping its movement.

“Good show, young Pit!”

“Well done Pit! I can see all the practice you’ve been doing in Home Run Contest.”

Pit laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Well, what can I say, that Sandbag never knew what hit him.”

“Beanball though?” Palutena questioned, laughing at the ridiculousness.

“Look, I had a lot of pressure, alright! Arlon only gave me, like, 3 seconds to prepare.”

“Alright alright. Let’s get you back so you can heal. Arlon, is there anything else that we can help with right now?”  
“No, not as of now. The defenses are up and I can deal with any remaining Underworld minions left inside. I’ll be doing a full tally of what was lost and deliver it upon the meeting with all of the other gods.”

“Yes, yes, good thinking. If the Underworld Army is back, we must confront Medusa about it.” Palutena started the teleport process for Pit to return back to the temple. “Oh by the way, did you happen to see the other Chaos Kin while on your way to meeting us?”

“... no.”

Before Palutena could respond though, Pit was already teleporting back to Palutena’s Temple, severing the connection. Arlon stared out the window, thinking to himself. “A Chaos Kin on the Earth will be devastating. I can only hope that it didn’t make its way down, with all the other weapons. And I can only hope that those weapons that did make it to Earth don’t fall into the wrong hands. One can only fear what just one of those can do.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin Keene was just coming home from a post-game party. His team, the Spartans, had just thrashed the rival school’s team 35 - 0, so there was much cause for celebration. His parents were visiting a relative in another state, leaving Kevin to watch the house and take care of Duke, the family dog. Kevin unlocked the front door and was surprised to find that Duke wasn’t waiting for him, as he expected.

“Duke! I’m home!” Kevin called, but to no response. He then heard the faint sound of Duke growling coming from the backyard. Thinking that it was probably just some raccoon or something that Duke was angry at, Kevin headed back to go wrangle the dog back in.

“C’mon Duke, let’s go insi-...” Kevin fell silent as what he saw he did not expect. Sitting in the middle of the yard, in a newly made crater surrounded by fire, was a black and white glove.


	3. Chapter II - The Game Master

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin Keene learns to take on the sudden new responsibility thrust upon him, all because he just had to put on that glove in the middle of his yard.

Kevin Keene wasn’t really sure what point his life was at anymore. The day had proceeded as he anticipated it would: wake up, get ready for school, go to school, B.S. through school, get to the football game, win the game, and go home. Yet he hadn’t factored the fact that he would be bouncing across rooftops at about 10 o’clock at night mostly out of control into his plan. Something had gone unexpected in the day: him finding that glove in his backyard. 

Yes, the glove that was now strapped to his hand that was forcing him to jump across rooftops. Well, forcing him wasn’t really the right word. Compelled him would be apter in this scenario. Ever since he had put on the glove, which he couldn’t take off, hard as he tried, there had been something akin to a burning fire down in the pit of his very soul: the burning yearn for justice… god, did this glove give him super cliche thoughts too? Regardless, it was this fire that was compelling him to jump from building to building; Kevin had an innate feeling that help was needed in the direction he was bounding. He didn’t know why he felt it, other than the glove caused it, but he felt it.

Kevin hadn’t really thought about it before this point either, but the glove was doing more than just giving him a fire in his soul, or whatever cliche he had just spouted in inner monologue via third-person narration. The major change that Kevin had noticed was, despite his athletic ability being fairly high, being a high school football player and all, he was never able to leap across the gaps between apartment buildings before. Nor was he actually able to scale them without using a fire escape. Well, he had used a fire escape, but not by climbing the stairs. Rather he had scaled it via clinging onto the bars on each level of the fire escape and hurling himself up to the next one. These were acrobatic abilities near unparalleled, and certainly nothing like Kevin was able to before.

Now that Kevin noticed too, perhaps he was too lost in thought before, but he lived in the suburbs. He had somehow traveled into at the very least the outer city, judging by the fact that he was climbing on apartment buildings rather than other houses. That would have been at least a half hour by car. How fast was he traveling? It had only seemed like minutes before he had left his house. Was he traveling really fast, or was he that out of it for that long?

Kevin didn’t have much more time to think about it though, because he could already see what the fire in his soul was leading him towards: an actual fire. The building cater-cornered from the building he was standing on was alight in vibrant reds, oranges, and yellows, and a thick black cloud of smoke was emanating from the windows. Firetrucks had surrounded the building, attempting to put out the fire, but it seemed that it was no good.

“MY BABY! MY BABY IS STUCK IN THE BUILDING!”

… had the whole world taken cliche pills and Kevin just never noticed? Regardless, Kevin accepted the fact that the universe was going to get him to become a superhero in the most cliched way possible, and prepared to go into the burning building. But how to do so? The firefighters on the ground were keeping people away from the door, for obvious reasons, so he couldn’t get in on the ground. … the fire in his soul was telling him to do something he really didn’t like. No, there was no way he was going to leap across an entire intersection to a burning building. Leaping over an alleyway between buildings was one thing, but an entire intersect-

Before Kevin could even finish that thought process, he slapped himself in the face. More accurately, the glove slapped him in the face. The glove, which was now on his right hand and apparently had a bit of control over him and a mind of its own, slapped him. This day was getting stranger and stranger. Well, considering that a glove left him no other choice, he was going to have to jump it.

Kevin backed up a bit on the rooftop to give himself a running start. He sprinted towards the edge of the roof and at the last second, placed his foot down, and pushed upwards on the foot. His hand naturally fell to his sides as he pushed off, and he could swear that he felt something push against the sole of his foot. Kevin was never into track and field, but after the leap he just gave, as he was now reaching the height of his arc right in the middle of the intersection, meaning he would land perfectly on the rough, he was heavily considering changing sports and becoming a long jumper.

What Kevin didn’t know that the push against his feet was actually the shock from a blast of energy emitted from the glove, meaning that his long jump career would have to be put on hold. What Kevin also didn’t know was that he was screaming at the top of his lungs, causing everyone down on the street below to look up to the skies and see a screaming man fly from one building and onto the flaming building, to everyone’s shock and surprise. People weren’t really used to seeing feats of amazement like this.

Kevin landed, much to his own surprise, on his feet, not even skidding to a stop or anything. It was almost as if this glove knew that the jump could be made easily before the jump even happened. Kevin pulled up his hand to look at the glove quizzically. What the hell had landed in his backyard? He didn’t have time to think about that at the moment though, as the fire, both the metaphorical one and the physical one, called for him to go in. There was a baby inside, and he had to find it. Dashing towards the rooftop door, he suddenly realized something rather important: humans are quite flammable. Although, if he pulled back, who knows what the glove could do next. It might slap him again. Or actually kick his ass through the door. Kevin really didn’t like those options, so inside he ran, only to find the glove had raised his hand for him and was emanating a red aura that surrounded him, acting almost like a shield; a shield which protected him from the fires, it seems. At this point, what couldn’t this glove do?

Kevin searched around the apartment building, being mindful of the fires. As much as it seemed that the shield could protect him from the fires, he didn’t really want to take his chances, in the event that the shield fails or something, he didn’t know how this glove worked. Eventually, he did find the baby, sitting in its cradle, happily giggling away. That perhaps is the bliss of youth, ignorance to all unknown dangers: dangers like the fact that the portion of the ceiling directly above the crib was about to fall on it. Almost as if on instinct Kevin dashed forward and pulled his arm above his head, bringing the protective shield over both him and the baby. 

As the debris fell onto the shield and around the two protected, Kevin began to think on his actions. While the first two, namely the leap and the running into the fire, had definitely not been his own choices, not really at least, this time was different. He felt in control of himself when he dashed in to shield the baby, there was no glove telling him it was the right move to make. Had he become attuned to the glove so quickly, or was there some spark more inside him, the spark of a hero? … again with the cliches. Did this glove have a cliche power or something?

Regardless, all the debris had fallen around him and the baby, so Kevin figured it was safe to move again. Putting the shield back down in front of him, and now picking up the baby, he said: “Alright, time to get you back home to your mother.” The baby, however, now decided that it was scared and started to cry. Babies, he would never understand them. Racing out of the room again, he turned back towards the staircase leading up to the roof, only to find it engulfed in flames. Well, that route was out. He turned back to the room, to see if he could fit out the window, or if there was a fire escape. No such luck. No fire escape, and the window was too small. The baby could probably fit through, but would you want to slip a baby through a window like it was a coin in a coin slot? Kevin didn’t. So he had to find a new way.

Kevin ran down the hallway, looking through room after room for an exit, but to no avail. Fire pervaded nearly every room, and those that didn’t have fire had much too small windows. Did no one in this apartment building get hot in the summers? Though in the case of this building it couldn’t get that much hotter. Kevin and the baby were trapped, it seemed to Kevin at least, in a hallway that was slowly burning down. The glove, however, saw different. Bringing up Kevin’s hand for him, it shot a blast at the wall, knocking open an exit to the outside. Kevin looked at the hole in shock, and then realized that he was no world record long jumper, he had some assistance from his glove, which probably didn’t comply with regulations of official competitions.

Inspecting the hole, he realized that it was large enough to fit himself through. Sure, on the other side was a several story drop, but if the glove could protect him from fire, it could probably protect his fall, he hoped. Hearing the crashing debris behind him, Kevin just ran for his and the baby’s life and jumped.

 

* * *

 

Delia was not having a good day. A stressful day at her job turned worse because of the fact that her home was now on fire in front of her eyes. Worse yet is that she could even go save her son, who was still inside, seeing as she had arrived while the fire was already blazing. The babysitter she hired, Hilbert, was standing outside already, having completely forgotten the baby. Delia made sure to make a note to never hire him again after this. But the more important thing was that her baby was still in there.

Delia had screamed for help, not really sure if anyone could do anything, but if someone could, the scream could help. Of course, she never expected the help to come in the form of a screaming man flying to the burning building and running inside. Most of the people around her were confused about it, Delia was just still worried about the wellbeing of her son, and now that man, who for all she knew was going in there to save her son. But that was a death sentence! Was Delia about to have sent someone to their death to save her son, who might as well have a death sentence?

What shocked everyone though was the fact that the man appeared about a minute or so later flying out of a newly made hole in the wall of the 5th floor, and landed on the road in almost a superhero pose. People started clapping and cheering as Delia ran towards the man, and seeing her baby in his arms, broke down crying, rushing to pick the child up.

“Oh thank you so much!” she cried. “I don’t know what I would have done without my Ash! How can I repay you?”

“Don’t worry ma’am. No repayment necessary,” said the man, as he pushed off the ground, and away on top of a building. 

People began to swarm around Delia, asking her questions about this, that, and every other thing, but the main question was simple: who was he? To this, Delia had no answer. Perhaps it was the tears, but his face appeared blurred, so she couldn’t recognize him on the street. She did notice that he was wearing a letterman jacket though, embroidered with a big ‘N’ on it. In her mind, she made up an answer using that alone: “Captain N.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin was surprised that he survived the fall. More surprising though was the fact that he was able to jump away again with such little hassle. What wasn’t surprising, however, was the searing pain in his kneecap. In the movies superheroes made it look so easy to do the whole “land on one knee and put your fist to the ground.” They never talk about the shattered patella that follows the impact. After that kind of injury, all Kevin wanted to do was go home, but that dang fire in his soul wasn’t letting up yet. He felt the call of justice pulling him in a new direction, and the glove was gonna take him there, shattered patellas be damned.

As he was bouncing along, the pain in his kneecaps was slowly going away. Could the glove heal him too? What kinda glove was this anyways? Now that he had a moment to think, his direction being at the whim of the glove, he began to speculate. The glove was in a crater, so maybe it was extraterrestrial in origin? If that’s the case, would that mean whatever race made it would come back to reclaim it? Hopefully, it didn’t involve Kevin’s death, due to, well, the glove being kind of stuck. And if this glove had so much power to it, why wasn’t it stored better? It seems like something too valuable to lose so easily.

Time really flies when speculating, Kevin found, as he had already arrived at the next place where the justice was leading him. It was a local convenience store that was being held up by a group of people holding a very large object, something that almost looked like an elephants foot. Interesting choice to hold up someone with, Kevin thought, but okay, whatever. He would go in and get whoever these people were, but Kevin realized if they put up a fight, it could be bad news for them, since the glove seemed very capable of killing a person with its power, so he decided to wait for them to come outside, and he woul-

BAM! The elephant foot let out what appeared to be almost a shockwave that sent the worker manning the register flying backward through the wall and into the adjoining alley. Well, so much for waiting, let’s just hope nobody dies during this. Kevin jumped down from the rooftop and ran through the now shattered glass doors of the store, to find that he recognized the group.

“Nester?” Kevin questioned, shocked. The leader of the bunch, and the one manning the elephant foot, turned towards Kevin, confirming that he was indeed Nester. Nester Powers was the son of Hester Powers, owner of the North of Industrial, Textiles, and Non-Denominational Organisation district (N.In.Te.NDO for short) Power, the biggest news magazine in the region. As the son of such a powerful man, he got the choice of doing whatever he wished, which is why, despite his relatively small size, he had managed to become quarterback for the Howard Phillips High Angels: the same football team that Kevin’s team, the Northtown High Spartans, had just thoroughly beaten in football not a few hours earlier.

When Nester realized the identity of the interrupter, a wicked smirk crossed his face. It was clear that he was still pissed off about losing, as were his teammates, who Kevin realized were the other members of this thieving crew. “Well, if it isn’t the Game Master!” The Game Master was Nester’s nickname for Kevin, considering as Kevin was the quarterback of the (usually victorious) opposing team. “What brings you here?”

“I could ask the very same question to you, Nester. Team building exercise?” Kevin snarked.

“More like releasing some built up aggression!” Nester retorted, firing a shockwave out of the elephant foot. The glove took over the fight or flight response and made Kevin dodge out of the way faster than human reflexes could normally. Nester looked shocked, and then quickly began to reposition the foot, as well as calling to a few of his compatriots to help deal with Kevin.

“Well, it seems like you guys didn’t have enough of losing on the football field. Guess I’m gonna have to give it to you again.” Kevin exuded confidence with that line, but truthfully, he wasn’t sure he could win this fight without killing someone. He sincerely hoped that this glove had some other tricks up its non-existent sleeves.

The glove certainly did have some tricks as when the first goon came up to Kevin, the glove started swinging, and swing it did. The guy flew backward, ending up breaking through the door on one of the refrigerator units, and landing the guy in a giant pile of frozen pizzas. The second guy started coming right as Nester was preparing the foot to fire again, so Kevin, with the gloves assistance, proceeded to vault over the second guy, pushing himself out of the way of the blast and the goon into the blast, which sent him through the opposite wall from the first hole.

As Kevin soared through the air, time began to seem as if it was standing still, and gave Kevin more than enough time to take in his surroundings. Nester was manning the cannon in the center of the room. Goon one was sitting on the pizzas, goon two was flying through the wall. The only other two guys were stuffing money from the register into the bag, perhaps this was how such a lousy football team kept getting funded. The biggest threat was definitely Nester, so he would have to be taken out first. But how? Kevin supposed if he was fast enough, he could keep moving in a circular pattern so that Nester could never set to fire, though he wasn’t sure if the foot could be readied while moving. The glove seemed to have another idea though, as an aura of sorts, similar to the shield, was reaching over to a nearby shelf, and grabbing a can of beans. The aura had seemed to move with his arm, so when he swung his arm around, he turned the aura and bean into a makeshift slingshot. 

Kevin aimed the slingshot at his foes head and released as time began to return to normal. The can of beans struck Nester dead in the forehead, knocking him out cold. “Beanball,” Kevin snarked, smirking victoriously.

He now turned to the other two robbers behind the cash register. The two now looked at the scene around them and realized the situation was hopeless. One look from Kevin was all that was needed for them to drop the bags like they were made of hot iron, and turn tail and run. Kevin decided it wasn’t worth the effort to chase after them, plus the kneecap was starting to hurt again, so he let them go. After going out to the alley to check on the cashier, Kevin bounded back home. The fire of justice was satiated, for now.

 

* * *

 

Nester was incredibly unhappy. Not only did he lose to whom he considered his archrival, twice mind you, but now he was also arrested for his actions. His new toy got taken away too, despite Nester’s protests of finders keepers and that his father will come and learn them a new one. The father excuse hadn’t prevented him from being arrested either. So Nester sat in the holding cell of the local police precinct, very displeased with the events of the evening.

Things started to turn up, however, when the guard opened up the cell and said: “Nester Powers, you’re free to go.”

Nester smirked, as he knew that at least something had gone his way. “Ah, so my father came and talked some sense into you fuzz.”

“Your father ain’t here kid.”

Confused, Nester walked out into the lobby of the police office. Sitting on one of the chairs was a tall, skinny man with long wavy hair and short well kept facial hair in a purple suit. As Nester exited, the man stood up and walked towards him, extending his hand out to shake. “Hello,” said the man, in a very Tim Curry-esque voice and with a sly smile on his face, “my name is Hadrian Dolofonos, president of the Adis Corporation. That’s some display you put on tonight.” As Nester shook his hand, Mr. Dolofonos leaned forward and whispered into Nester’s ear, “How would you like to get some revenge for that?” The malicious grin on Nester’s face as Dolofonos pulled back was all he needed to see, and he walked the boy out of the station and into a limousine parked outside, laughing.


	4. Chapter III - The Crossing of Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our two heroes finally meet, though not under the friendliest of circumstances.

It had been about a week since the incident at the Lunar Sanctum, and only now were all the gods, save for Hades, who was still missing in action, assembled to deal with the sudden return of the Underworld Army. Pit wasn’t allowed in attendance, seeing as he isn’t a god, but Palutena had informed him of the details of the meeting afterward.

 

* * *

 

“Pit, I feel like I’m in a roundabout with no exits,” Palutena sighed, as she returned to the temple from the meeting, beginning to look haggard.

“That bad, huh?” Pit consoled. Meetings between the gods always made Palutena like this. As regal and above everyone else the gods make themselves out to be, most of them still acted like small children half the time, bickering over this and that and holding petty grudges.

“It was like Arlon and I were the only ones that really saw the threat for what it was. Everyone else was off in their own worlds almost. Medusa, Pandora, and Thanatos, of course, were enjoying every second of it, because it was diverting attention off of them. Smug little so and so’s.”

“What was their answer to the rebuilding?”

“They denied it, unsurprisingly, and of course they had no explanation, other than maybe it came from Earth, which started Viridi on why she couldn’t be on Earth if the Underworld Army could, and then that opened up a whole new can of worms… ugh.” Palutena sighed again, rubbing her temples.

“I mean, Viridi has a point. If the Underworld Army can use Earth, why can’t all the gods?” The death glare he got from Palutena was answer enough. “Not helping, sorry.”

“No, both you and Viridi do have a point. And I do know how much you miss going down and meeting the humans, I do too. But if the gods were free to roam around on Earth again, just imagine how much death and destruction it could bring.”

Palutena was right, the last time the gods were on Earth, a millennium-long war erupted between the armies of Skyworld and the Underworld. Pit was born of the conflict, and he was there to deliver the final blow to Hades, but it was a long and bloody road in between. “You’re right Lady Palutena.”

“That’s also why it’s so imperative that we deal with the situation now, especially now that a large number of powerful weapons from the Lunar Sanctum could get into the humans’ hands.”

“What fell?”

“Well, the Ilektrika Vronti, the Mandyas Zuree, the Plutona Gantia, the Kremasto Chionanthropo, the Vrachiolia Ganti, just to name a few, and also the Chaos Kin still hasn’t been found yet, so it’s on the list too.”

“I see.”

“The Underworld attack couldn’t have done more damage, could it?”

“Well, it could have been worse, we did manage to stop the second Chaos Kin!”

“True, and you seemed to have fun doing it too! At the very least you had a wild ride.” Palutena added, chuckling.

“You’re never going to let me live this one down, are you?”

“Maybe eventually, but not for a while.”

“Ugh, anyways. So what’s the plan for getting all of the lost weapons?”

“We decided to hire the Reapers to go around and collect them.”

“The Reapers? Don’t they work for Hades?”

“They were always more of a work-for-hire sort. Hades just happened to get them before we could last time. And they’re efficient too!”

“Huh, whatever works I guess. Hey, maybe I could go down and help out too! It’d be nice for once to be around a bunch of Reapers and have them not go ‘DUN DADUN DADUN DADUN, DUN DADUN DADUN DUN’ at me.”

Palutena chuckled, but not as heartily as before. “Nice impression, but sorry Pit, no can do. Sending you would be almost throwing my hat into the ring for bringing Gods back to Earth, and that’s not what I wish to instill. Besides, the Reapers have a certain… je n’ais se quois to them. They’re stealthy, and they have the will to do what’s needed. Now, I love you for this Pit, but when push came to shove if a human wasn’t willing to give up one of the weapons, would you do what needs to be done?”

Pit didn’t really have an answer for that. In the week between the Lunar Sanctum attack and the present time, he had thought much about going down and helping recover the weapons, but he hadn’t thought about the fact that a human might have to be harmed, or even killed by his hand, in the process. He had taken down many a monster in his time, but never a human. The thought saddened Pit; he had worked so hard to protect humanity, he couldn’t just slay one.

Palutena had noticed the young angel’s disheartened expression and mulled over an idea in her brain. She sighed internally, as she knew that what she was about to do could be a potential major mistake, but risky decisions like this had worked out in the past, so why not try so now. “Well, I thought I might retire early tonight, so I’m not going to be watching the gateway to Earth.  _ Don’t go through it while I’m not looking Pit _ ,” she said with a wink.

Pit thought about it for a second, before his face lit up in understanding. “Oh don’t worry Lady Palutena! I won’t!”

“Good! I expect nothing less from my right-hand angel. Furthermore, if you did go down, which I know you won’t, I shouldn’t have you contact me, and you would stay out of the sights of the Reapers. And I’m sure, if you did go, which, again, I know you won’t, that if you came across any of the weapons you’d make sure that you wouldn’t take it yourself, but just bring the information back to me, which I’d then pass along to the Reapers, citing my all-seeing eye. Right Pit?”

“Right Lady Palutena!”

“Excellent. I’m off to bed.  _ No funny business _ ,” she added with another wink.

“No worries! No funny business whatsoever! Good night!”

As Palutena rounded the corner, she could hear the sound of Pit’s sandals squeaking as they ran off towards the armory. Had she made the right decision? Only time would tell.

 

* * *

 

Pit stood on the edge of the gateway to Earth, butterflies slowly filling his stomach. It had been years since he made the plunge down through the large stone portal, and into the world of humans. He had missed it for so long. He saw little bits here and there about things that had happened, but he didn’t really know how much had changed! Was Athens still the capital anymore? He knew much time had passed, but he wondered if the humans still spoke of the Gods, and the tales of glory long ago. Who knows? Pit might even be famous over there!

Pit turned around on the edge of the portal and fell backward into a free fall. Gods he had missed this rush of adrenaline! As the angel fell through layer after layer of clouds, he did one last check of everything. Bow? Check. Notepad to write info down? Check. Writing utensil? … he forgot a pencil. Ah well, hopefully, the humans still wrote. Though then again, Pit never learned how to read, so the note would be chicken scratch anyways. Maybe he could draw a little thank you note to Palutena for this. She’d appreciate that.

As Pit exited the cloud layers, he expected to see rolling green fields and rocky mountains and burbling streams and all the beauty of nature. What he got instead was urban sprawl. Except he didn’t know what to call it, he had never seen a city like this before. It was all foreign to him. But he didn’t really have the time to learn about any of this stuff now, especially since he never really expected himself to get to see this again, he had some weapons to find. Taking a quick scan around, he looked for anything out of the ordinary. Then again, everything to him about this was out of the ordinary. So he just looked for explosions, those were always the best indications before of when something was not right.

He scanned the horizon. Nothing, nothing, nothing, hey wait a minute. Off in the distance, not too far away, a brilliant flash of orange erupted from one of the buildings. An explosion! And nearby the explosion, he noticed a man was bouncing from rooftop to rooftop? Were they connected? He didn’t know, but it was worth the look. Pit zoomed off in the direction of the explosion and the bouncing man. As he approached, the man, or rather, young man near to about the same age that Pit looked, give or take a few years, became clearer. He had brown hair and had a fairly muscular appearance to him. He wore jeans, a black cloth mask over his eyes, and a red letterman jacket with a big ‘N’ embroidered on. What interested Pit more was what was on his hand.

 

* * *

 

In the week that had passed between his finding of the glove and the present day, Kevin had learned to be quite adept with its abilities. It no longer felt the need to guide him in any capacity, rather just letting him do his own thing. Kevin had a good heart in him, all the glove had to do was point him in the right direction and then work with him.

The people of the area had come to admire him too. “Captain N,” as the N.In.Te.N.D.O. Power referred to him, had come to the rescue in many different scenarios, ranging from the small and mundane, like saving a cat stuck in a tree, to the bigger, less normal cases. What he was after today was one of the latter cases. A pair of brothers, named the Poppy Brothers, had been setting bombs around the city and blowing up major landmarks, causing mass hysteria. Their latest project had just been completed, and they were on the run. Little did they realize though that Captain N was on their trail! It was going to be an easy catch. Things just had to go as planned.

“THE VRACHIOLIA GANTI!”

… what?

Kevin, while still bounding across the rooftops, turned around to see something he couldn’t even believe, despite all the weird things he’d seen this week. A young kid, maybe around Kevin’s age or a bit younger, with scruffy brown hair and gigantic white wings, wearing a toga and sandals, was flying towards him at very fast speeds. All Kevin could do was mutter “What the…” as his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates.

The boy flew aside Kevin at a steady pace, and asked him, “Hey, uh, can we talk a minute?”

Things weren’t going as planned. “Uh, I’m kinda in the middle of something!”

“What, blowing up stuff?”

“No! Stopping the people blowing up stuff!”

“Wait, you’re not using the Vrachiolia Ganti to destroy stuff?”

“The what?!?”

“The glove!” The kid gestured with his right arm. “The glove on your right arm!”

“Oh! Why the hell didn’t you say that?”

“I did! That glove is the Vrachiolia Ganti! Roughly translated as ‘The Bronze Gauntlet!’”

“I’ve been calling it the Power Glove! Six to one is a half dozen to the other I guess!”

“That name works too! Look, can we stop moving and just talk?”

“Again, kinda in the middle of something!”

“So you said! Stopping people from blowing stuff up, eh? Kind of like a hero, huh?”

“In a sense, yeah!”

“Mind if I help? I’ve stopped a baddie or two in my day!”

“In your day, you make it seem like your an old timer! What are you, no older than 15?”

“Actually I’m over 3000!”

What… did this kid say he was over 3000 years old? This couldn’t be real, no way, Kevin couldn’t believe it. But, the kid was offering to help, so why turn him down? He could help catch the Poppy Bros quicker, meaning we could get to see what he wanted quicker, meaning he could get out of Kevin’s hair quicker. “Alright, see that black car down there?”

“What’s a car?”

Kevin never thought in a million years that in the year 2019 he would be asked what a car was by a supposed 3000+-year-old angel who looked no older than 15, yet here he was. They should teach kids in school never to pick up strange gloves in your backyard. “The black moving thing down there!”

“Ohhhhh, yeah?”

“The two guys are in there!”

“Alright, gotcha!”

“Now, I co-” Kevin couldn’t even get three words out, the angel kid was already gone. It was almost if he had teleported away, or something. Well whatever, at least Kevin could focus on-

“You mean these guys?”

Kevin turned and looked to his side again, only to see the angel kid had returned and was holding the Poppy Brothers by the scruffs of their collars, one in each hand. Upon seeing that, all forward motion for Kevin ceased, out of pure disbelief. “WHAT THE?” Of course, when you’re moving at fast speeds, and you come to a sudden stop, your momentum doesn’t, so Kevin flew forward and landed on his face. As he picked himself up and dusted himself off, he noticed that the two Poppy Brothers were now pinned to the wall via glowing white objects, what appeared to be arrows almost, and the angel kid was sitting on one of the rooftop vents.

“You were having trouble with these guys? Huh, the ability of heroes sure has gone down since I last checked.”

“Oh, and who was so great last you checked?”

“Magnus. The Chariot Master.”

“Who?”

“C’mon, you don’t know these guys? They’re, like, the coolest!”

This kid was definitely weird, no doubt about it. It seemed he was like a fish in the middle of the Sahara: hopelessly out of his element. But he had ability, no doubt about that: flight, speed, a bow that shoots light, maybe some other tricks up his sleeve. All Kevin could do was mutter out “What are you?”

“Oh, right! Getting distracted.” The angel stood up and placed his hand on his chest. “I am Pit! Servant of the Goddess of Light, Palutena!”

“... Captain N, servant of no one.” 

“Hi Captain, I’m gonna need that Power Glove!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a dangerous weapon with awesome power, one of a bunch that fell around here! Plus, I’m not the only one searching for these weapons, but I’m probably the only one you want to deal with.”

“Oh, believe me, I know about its power, but, believe me, I’ve only been using this for good, unlike any other weapon wielders I found.”

“You’ve faced other weapons?

“Sure, a few. Most notable one was this giant elephant foot that shot out shockwaves.”

Pit’s face lit up. “You fought the Snong?!?”

“Is that what it’s called?

“Oh yeah, used to belong to a big Elephant guy, tried to smash me with it, good times.”

“Sounds like it.”

Pit shook his head. “But that’s not important right now. Despite the fact you seem like a good guy who has used the glove for good, I still need to have it back.”

“Alright, you rag on me about potentially using it for harm, yet you expect me to just hand it over? How do I know you aren’t going to use it for harm?”

“Uh, hello? Angel. And besides, I’m the servant of the goddess of LIGHT, we’re kind of known for not being evil.”

“Light under a high concentration can still burn.”

“Do I look like a magnifying glass?”

“Eh. Still, I ain’t giving you the glove. Besides, it’s kinda stuck.”

“Stuck?”

Before Kevin could reply, Pit was already next to him and tugging on the glove, extremely hard. “JESUS CHRIST ARE YOU TRYING TO DISLOCATE MY ARM?” Kevin screamed in anguish.

“Wow, that’s stuck. Huh, well, find a way to take it off then.”

“No!”

“Look, as I mentioned before, I’m not the only one searching for these things, before long, one of the other guys will come, and they’re not as pleasant, they’ll most certainly kill you.

“I’d like to see them try.”

“They will! I can barely beat them myself! And I fought countless battles against them! Believe me, I’m your best option for getting out of here alive and well. So, just, find a way to get the glove off and give it back to me, and you don’t have to get hurt.”

“And if I refuse?”

“... you may get hurt. But I’m not going to kill you, just incapaci-WOAH!”

Before Pit could even finish his statement Kevin had shot an energy blast from the glove at him. The angel had dodged out of the way, showing he had quick reflexes in addition to his natural speed. The angel got into a fighting stance, pulling out his bow from off his back and splitting it in two, revealing that it can also function as twin blades. “Woah okay I try to be nice and you shoot at me! You must be great at parties. Alright then, no more Mr. Nice Pit. GIVE ME THE GLOVE!” With that Pit shot forward, flying full speed at Kevin.

Time began to slow once again as Kevin took the time to analyze the situation. Except time wasn’t going slow enough, as Pit was still flying at him, not at the incredibly fast speed he was, but at about the pace of a normal human briskly walking. Was this angel kid so fast that even time slowing didn’t really slow down his pacing? Kevin had to think fast, so he tried something he had been wondering for a long time. If his shield aura could reflect things off of it, could he bounce someone out of the way with it too? Now was as good a time as any to find out, he reasoned.

Time began to speed up again as Kevin hit the roof back first, and turned on his shield. As Pit passed over him, he thrust his arm upwards, knocking the shield into Pit, and sending the angel shooting upwards, which caught the angel off guard. This gave Kevin enough time to dash down from where he was and off the roof to the street below. In the week since his leap from the burning apartment, Kevin had learned how to properly nail the superhero landing so he didn’t shatter his knee cap every time. He stood up and began running down the street, but, seeing how fast the angel was, he knew running was mostly futile.

Sure enough, within a minute Pit had caught up, and began taking pot shots at Kevin. Kevin weaved his way through the arrows, and he got an idea. Using the glove’s aura to pick up one of the arrows, he didn’t really trust picking it up himself, it seemed hot, if it truly was made of light, he spun around and hurled the arrow back at Pit. It whizzed right by him, singing the edge of his toga. Pit seemed to realize the danger of shooting more arrows, so he zoomed down next to Kevin.

“Just give over the glove already, please!”

“Not gonna happen,” Kevin returned, shooting a blast at Pit, who dodged swiftly.

“Well at the very least can you not shoot at me anymore?”

“Oh, and just let you take pot shots at me?”

“Well, after you threw one back at me I realized I ain-GACK!”

The gack came about as Pit flew straight into a parked car, due to his head being turned to talk to Kevin. Kevin took the chance to stop running, and turn around. The two’s fight had left a reign of destruction down the street, perhaps this is what the angel was talking about the glove being dangerous? As Pit stumbled out of his predicament with the car, Kevin noted: “You know Cupid, your chasing me caused a decent amount of destruction that could have been avoided if you hadn’t chased me.”

“It’s Pit. Just Pit. And yeah, well, it also could have been avoided if you had just given over the glove instead of _shooting at me…_ _N-Man_.”

“That’s Captain N to you, and I’m not giving this over.”

“Look, I didn’t want to get into this, but you leave me no choice,” the angel pulled out a bow and readied the arrow. Kevin prepared to dodge the shot, but instead of firing from a distance, Pit flew forward towards Kevin, bow still prepped. It caught Kevin off guard enough that all he had time to do was put up his shield and hope.

 

* * *

 

“This just in, a giant shockwave just rocked a block in lower New Athens. Authorities have yet to investigate the cause, but they suspect it to be another case in the ‘mysterious objects’ book.”

Sophia Morris turned off the TV and shook her head. There had been a real increase in the number of incidents like this in the past week, and she was growing tired of dealing with them all. But, unfortunately, there is no rest for someone in her position. The dirty blonde haired woman tied it into a ponytail and walked to the door. She put on her long black trench coat, long black scarf, and dark wide-brimmed hat, before turning back to her study. She pulled a key out of her pocket and used it to open a glass case over on the wall. Out of it, she pulled the Vampire Killer, and she closed the case, locking it back up. 

She strapped the whip to her belt and she walked out the door, unsure of what threat she may face at the shockwave site. All she knew was that it had to be dealt with, and if it was supernatural, she was the only one who could deal with it.


	5. Chapter IV - Don't Fear the Reaper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Pit set aside their differences as another player joins the fight.

Ouch. Okay, so maybe flying headfirst into the guy that has a shield with a light arrow primed wasn’t the best idea. But hey, how was Pit supposed to know that it would result in a huge shockwave? Or him flying back and through the front window, or, well, what’s left of the front window, of whatever this place is. It seemed like a restaurant of sorts, which Pit was always a fan of. Maybe he could stop in the kitchen quickly?

Gah, keep focused, there’s no time for that. Pit stood, dusting himself off from both bits of debris and what appeared to be cookies of some sort. He had flown across the entire lobby of the building, crashing into the counter and knocking the bowl of said cookies on top of him. As he walked forward, he grabbed a cookie, unwrapped it, and tossed it into his mouth. Now all he would ha-*COUGH* Pit started choking on the cookie that he was chewing. He spat it out to find that there was a piece of paper inside. Who would ruin a perfectly good cookie by sticking a piece of paper in it? It had some words on it, but due to Pit’s inability to read, he didn’t know which words. He figured it must be something mean, considering that someone took the time to stick it inside a cookie so people could choke on it.

His hacking fit subsided, Pit exited the restaurant through the door, the bell chiming away as he exited. Now, he had to find that Captain N fella. Maybe the shockwave had been enough to knock him out cold, so that Pit could easily walk over, slip the glove off, and take it? Then again, it was pretty stuck on his hand earlier. Hmm.

Thinking about the possibility that Captain N had been knocked out got Pit thinking; had he been knocked out too? And if so, for how long? Maybe long enough that Captain N got up and ran away with the glove. For his sake, Pit hoped not, especially with all the Reapers running around. That guy, no matter how skilled he was with the glove, stood no chance against a Reaper. Oh wait there he is.

Further down the road, stumbling out of the destroyed storefront of a construction agency, was Captain N, looking a bit disheveled, but overall not too bad. Pit called out to him, and Captain N got into a defensive position. Realizing his miscommunication, Pit made a no symbol and put his bow down on the road. Realizing the peace gesture, Captain N dropped his guard, and Pit walked over.

“What, you calling it quits?” the Captain questioned.

“Look, I flew into a non-moving car, got tossed through the window of some kind of restaurant with evil cookies, which I nearly choked on because somebody decided to put a paper in it. I’ve suffered enough injuries tonight. Plus, you don’t look so great yourself.”

“Eh, nothing I can’t handle. Besides, I think the building suffered more damage than I did.” N looked up at the building. “Construction Agency?” N chuckled. “Well, at least they know who to call to fix them up.”

The pair stood in silence for a moment. “You know,” Pit said, breaking the silence, “what I said about the whole you having the glove thing is true, it’s still a very dangerous thing to be holding.”

“Look, you saw how I’m using it, you know that I’m not causing destruction. If anybody caused more destruction tonight, it was you.”

“Fair, fair. But I’m not talking about that. I mean it’s dangerous to you. Those people I mentioned are still out there.”

“If I can take you on, I think I can take my chances with them.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Captain N said something in reply, but Pit wasn’t paying attention. He had heard something, a sound that he knew all too well, but hadn’t heard in years. It was a high pitched whirring, and it sounded like it was getting closer. If he was right about what it was, Captain N was about to be able to test his theory about taking chances with the other people after the glove. Pit didn’t want that to happen.

When the noise started getting too close for comfort, Pit grabbed Captain N’s arm, and ran as fast as he could to the inside of the shelled out storefront of the construction agency, holding them both behind the wall.

“What the h-” Captain N started to say before Pit slapped a hand over the Captain’s mouth, preventing him from speaking.

“We’re gonna have to be very quiet for a bit.” Pit said in a voice barely audible. “If what I thin-did you just lick my hand?”

“wuuv ooo rabber I bibbit?” Captain N muttered, muffled by the hand covering his mouth.

“I would rather you do neither and just be quiet and listen. Understood?” Captain N nodded. “Can I take my hand off now?” Another nod. Pit removed his hand and very quickly wiped it on his toga, giving a “What the hell” look at Captain N before continuing. “If what I think is out there is out there, we don’t want it spotting us. Now, I may be able to shoot-” Pit felt around on his back, and noticed something, or rather, the lack of something. “Wait, where’s my… oh poop.” Pit looked through the opening in the storefront to confirm what he realized, he had placed the bow in the middle of the street and never picked it up.

Pit turned back to Captain N. “Alright, don’t panic, buuuuut through my peace offering earlier I may have screwed us.”

“What?”

“It’s not a definite! So long as the Reapette doesn’t see it.”

“What’s a Reapette?”

Pit looked back through the opening at the bow, contemplating the distance between where he was and the restaurant, and debating whether he should run for it. He turned the other direction to see if the Reapette was coming, and nearly jumped out of his skin when he did. He quickly jumped back inside, back flat against the wall, and just pointed. Not 10 seconds later,  a floating green robed entity with a skull for a face passed by, making the now loud whirring sound. This was a Reapette.

Captain N covered his ears from the volume of the whirr, and said: “Why is it making that noise?”

“‘Cause it’s a robot. You wouldn’t believe it right? Looks so realistic! But no, it’s just a robot.” Pit and Captain N sat there as they listened to the whirring get progressively get quieter. “It surely must have reached my bow by now, so I think we’re in the clear.” Not as soon as he said that did the two hear an almost whooping noise. “CRAP!”

“I thought you said we had to be quiet!”

“That doesn’t really matter anymore! Not yet at least. We need to shut off that Reapette before its Reaper shows up!” Pit dashed out of the storefront and into the street, shortly followed by Captain N.

“And what the hell is a Reaper?” Captain N raised his hand to fire a blast at the Reapette before Pit rushed in and pulled his hand down.

“Don’t! You fire that the Reaper will be on us like bad smell on good cheese. We’re going to have to result to more physical means. Find something to throw at it! When you do I’ll try and duck under it to get my bow. Meet me where I crashed into.”

“What, the Chinese restaurant?”

“I don’t know what that means but that first word means, but it did seem like a restaurant, so I’m gonna say yes.”

“How the hell do you not know what China is?”

“Look, there’s a lot of things I don’t know. Can we just try and work this?”

Pit dashed forward behind a parked car nearby the Reapette and waited. The alarm noise was starting to get to Pit, especially since he knew that that meant the Reaper could be just around the corner. The Reapette had come from up the street so Pit figured that that’s the direction that the Reaper was in. He hoped not to suddenly turn the corner and find the Reaper there waiting for him. Pit didn’t have any more time to think though, as a trash can came flying through the air, knocking straight into the Reapette, sending it crashing to the ground, and stopping the alarm. Pit, seizing the opportunity, sped forward past the downed Reapette and into the store. Captain N followed shortly behind him in.

Pit slumped against the back of the counter. Captain N slumped down next to him. Silence passed between them as they both tried to catch their breaths. “Alright, hit me up,” Captain N finally said, “What’s the deal with these Reapers and Reapettes, and all that biz?”

“The Reapers were the guys I was telling you about earlier. They are an elite team of mercenaries, work for hire. Currently, they’re being hired by the Gods, who I also serve.”

“Wait, then why are you so scared of them?”

“Because I’m not supposed to be down here. But that’s not important right now. They’re after a bunch of weapons that fell down to Earth. One of them is the Vrachiolia Ganti, or, as you call it, the Power Glove. They’ll do whatever it takes to get it, even if that means killing whoever is in possession of it.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I warned you about this.”

“I didn’t think you meant it!”

“Why wouldn’t you think I meant it? Do people just go around saying that someone’s gonna kill you every day?”

“Look, put yourself in my shoes man, an angel was talking to me.”

“I talk a lot. Not just to you, but you get the point. Me talking is not weird.”

“There ain’t angels around here though!”

“Well, I’m around here ain’t I?”

“Just forget about it. Go on.”

“Well,” Pit got up and looked over the counter. Captain N did the same. “Hopefully we knocked the Reapette down before the Reaper could realize where it was.”

“What’s so important about that?”

“The Reapettes are like the dogs that hunters use. The dog will go search out the prey and alert the hunter, so that all the hunter has to do is capture his bounty. Reapettes do the same thing. In this case, sniffing out where the weapons are. It’s looking for a Skyworldian-”

“Skyworldian?”

“Yes, Skyworldian, from Skyworld.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s the best name for a place you came up with, Skyworld?”

“It’s a world in the sky! What else would we call it?”

“I dunno! Something better. Like Columbia or something.”

“Well, if you get your own world you can call it whatever you like, we’re keeping Skyworld. Anyways, it’s looking for a Skyworldian signature, which my bow has, hence why the alarm went off. It’s also attracted to any abnormalities, so probably our little fight earlier drew it to us.”

“Wait, if it’s attracted to Skyworldian tech, then why did you want to fire your bow at it earlier?”

“Because I could have taken it out before it even noticed us, but, well it’s too late for that now. We can only hope when it reactivates it goes on its merry way, and that the Reaper wasn’t close enough to know where we were.”

As Pit finished saying that, the whirring began again. The Reapette was alive. A few tense seconds passed as the two waited in anticipation to hear it go away. It eventually grew silent, and the angel and human sighed in relief. Only for them to gasp again once the Reapette’s alarm sounded.

“Oh for the love of god,” Captain N stated, exasperated.

“Come on! Why’d it have to go off?”

Suddenly, the entire street was bathed in red light. Pit instinctively ducked and pulled Captain N down with him as the red glow filled the restaurant.

“What the hell is that?” N asked.

“That is the Reaper.”

“Why is it so bright?”

“It needs to see everything perfectly, hence the glaring red light.”

“I see.”

Some silent, tense moments passed as the red glow stayed put on the store.

“Uh, we could be here for a bit,” Pit explained. “The Reapers like to be, uh, thorough in their searches.”

“Gotcha.” Captain N reached down and picked up one of the fortune cookies from off the floor, and began to unwrap it.

“Careful! There’s a piece of paper inside!” Pit warned.

“I know. It’s a fortune cookie, there’s supposed to be a paper inside.”

“What? There is? What kind of logic is that? You’re gonna choke on it.”

“...You’re a weird one, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Captain N broke open the cookie and took the fortune. He ate half the cookie and offered the other half to Pit, which Pit took. N looked at the fortune and chuckled. Pit looked over inquisitively, and N turned the paper to show him. Pit stared for a second before bluntly saying “I can’t read. What does it say?”

“Oh, sorry, didn’t know. It reads ‘You shouldn’t have dropped your bow.’”

“Does it really say that?”

“Yeah! See for yourself.”

“I’ll take your word for it. You know, I’m beginning to dislike these cookies more and more, tasty as they are. One tried to choke me, and now it’s being sassy.”

Captain N laughed. “You know, Pit you said your name was?, if we both survive this, I wouldn’t mind running into you again. You seem like a good guy.”

“Likewise, though I don’t know how much we’ll be seeing of each other, seeing as I’m not even supposed to be down here.”

“Ah, right. Well hey, maybe I can head up your way then? Visit you up in Skyworld.”

“Hey, I mean, if you managed that, you’re welcome in Palutena’s Temple. I’m sure she’d love to meet you.”

“Might have to drop by then!”

The two of them laughed. As their laughter subsided, they noticed the red light lift away. Pit motioned with a finger to wait for a second, then motioned for both of them to rise up again. They looked over the counter. Seeing nothing, the slowly made their way to the wall next to the broken window and cautiously peeked around the corner. Up the street from them, they could see a tall figure in a black robe carrying a scythe scanning the street in the opposite direction of them, bathing it in red light.

“Well, he seems to be occupied,” Pit noted. “If we can sneak up behind him quickly and quietly enough, we might be able to get the drop on him.”

“Uh, Pit?”

“What?”

“Who’s that?”

Pit turned to see where N was pointing. He was pointing at a dark alleyway across the street from the restaurant, where the figure of someone peeking around the building corner. The two of them could see that this person had long dirty blonde hair in a ponytail that poked out under a dark, large brimmed hat. They wore a trench coat and scarf about the same color as the hat, and strapped to their side was a whip.

“I dunno,” answered Pit. “They with you?”

“Would I have asked you if I knew who that was?”

“Look I’m just covering all my bases!”

At that, the person turned and looked over at them. They could see over the scarf lay two eyes with a cold stare. Pit and Captain N instinctively shirked back behind the corner of the wall and watched with their eyes barely visible.

 

* * *

 

Ugh, who were these two clowns? They looked to be about Sofia’s age. One of them was wearing a red Northridge High letterman jacket. The other, a toga? Weird. Never mind them though, Sofia could deal with them later. She was more preoccupied with the Reaper down the street from her.

Sofia had dealt with her fair share of Reapers in her time, the occupational hazard of being trained by Death himself. They were something to be admired by their strength and power, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with easily enough. The trick was to catch them off guard, then they couldn’t do a single thing.

Sofia pulled from out of her pockets two items, namely a dagger, and a pouch of holy water. She tied the holy water to the tip of her dagger via the strings, and then, pulling out her whip, loaded the dagger at the end of the whip so that when the whip was cracked the dagger could be launched forward. She felt quite clever when she had come up with this method, even more so when Death mentioned to her that none of her predecessors had ever tried combining weapons like she did before.

She walked out into the middle of the street and smirked. She called out “Hey! Skeletor!” The Reaper immediately turned around and started racing at her. She simply waited. Once the Reaper had about reached half the distance between the two, she reared back and cracked the whip, sending the dagger flying forward and straight into the Reaper’s chest. The pouch of Holy Water burst on contact, engulfing the Reaper in flames. The Reaper flailed around and ran for a bit, before collapsing into a pile of bones. Sofia walked to the now dead Reaper and plucked her dagger back up, placing it back in her pocket.

“HOLY POOP THAT WAS AWESOME!”

Sofia turned around to see that the two boys had come out from hiding in the Chinese restaurant. She could see both clearly now. The one in the Letterman was taller, and more fit, clearly athletic. He wore a cloth mask around his face, not that it would really do much, perhaps it was more for aesthetic. On his hand, he wore a black and grey glove, which intrigued Sofia. The other boy, the one in the toga, intrigued her even more though. She could see now that he was not actually just a boy, but in fact an angel of some sort, at least his white wings made it seem so.

“The way you just set the Reaper on fire? That was amazing!” The angel boy exclaimed, approaching Sofia. “So what do you use? Greek Fire? Normal fire?” Sofia cracked her whip, which sent the angel jumping back.

“None of your business,” Sofia bluntly stated. “Now, you two, were you responsible for much of this damage?”

“Regrettably yes,” answered the one in the letterman.

“Alright, what are your names and species?”

“Species?” echoed the letterman.

“Just answer the questions.”

“Pit, angel,” answered the angel.

“Captain N, human,” answered the letterman.

“Okay, Captain N, is that glove the main cause of this damage?”

“Partially yes.”

“And Pit, are you of this world or another world?”

“This world.”

“People don’t have wings on this world, birds do.”

“I’m from Earth yes, just not the Earth you know.”

“... I see. Well, I only have two requests, effective immediately. Pit, go back to whatever Earth you came from, and Captain N, I’m going to need your glove.”

“Why does everyone want my glove today?”

“Listen,” Pit interjected, “I already tried to get the glove from him, he ain’t giving it up so easily. And besides, if anyone was going to get it, it would be me, it’s too dangerous for humans to handle.”

“Exactly,” Sofia retorted, “That’s why I need to take it and store it in someplace where no human can get to it. It’s a supernatural entity, meaning it’s under my jurisdiction to protect Earth from. You also fall under that jurisdiction, Mr. Pit.”

“Well, you fall under my jurisdiction then, so there.”

“You probably don’t even know what jurisdiction means.”

“That’s beside the point!”

“Why am I wasting my time arguing with you? Captain N, just hand…”

When Sofia turned back to Captain N, he was gone. She heard the sound of feet landing on top of the roof of the building next to her. She looked to the roof and saw Captain N on there, running away from them. “HEY, YOU GET BACK HERE CAPTAIN N!”

She heard Pit mutter something unintelligible, she thought she maybe heard some Greek in there, and then he flew off at high speeds. “YOU GET BACK HERE TOO!” She called after them, to no avail. Frustrated, she crumpled up her hat a bit before putting it back on her head. Sofia quickly ran back down the alley she was hiding behind earlier to the cab she had waiting at the other end. She looked up and saw Captain N jumping across the street. She hopped in the cab and addressed the driver “You see that bounding man up there?”

“Yeah?”

“Follow him to wherever he goes.”

“You sure? You’re racking up quite a fare.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be paid.”

“Suits me fine.”

And with that, they were off. Knowing there wasn’t really much she could do, Sofia, turned to look out the window and stared at the world passing by. She was absentmindedly lost in thought as the world slowly faded into darkness around her. She was greeted by a deep, raspy voice.

“Sypha, why did you kill one of my Reapers?”

 

* * *

 

Sofia found herself no longer sitting in a cab, but rather in the domain of her mentor, Death itself. The world around her was pure darkness, other than the stark white furniture she and Death sat around. Death was in a throne, looking as unamused as a pure skeleton wrapped in black cloth could.

“It was in my way. I was only there to investigate why the explosion happened. It would have gotten in my way. So I killed it.”

“Yet you attacked it unprovoked. Unfair, don’t you think.”

“My family was never known for being fair. You of all should know that.”

“Indeed. And yet I’ve been very fair to you. I raised you from a small child when I was the one who tried to slaughter every one of your ancestors.”

“Then why me?”

“You know very well why.”

“‘Because I’m important’ you say. But every time I try to prove my importance, you shoot me down, belittle me, condescend to me.”

“Because it’s not your time.”

“To hell with your perception of what is or isn’t my time. I make my own time.” At this, Sofia angrily stood up and began walking to a white door that led out of Death’s Domain.

“Sypha, come back, we can have a more pleasant discussion.”

“My name is Sofia.”

“Still going with your given name.”

“I have no other.”

“You try my patience Sypha, you are just like the rest of your family.”

“Then why don’t you kill me like the rest of my family.”

“I won’t.”

“Because you can’t.”

“Because it’s not my place to. It’s Dracula’s. I could very easily turn you over to him. He’d pay anything to get his hands on the last Belmont.”

But Death’s threats fell on deaf ears as Sofia stepped through the door and back to reality.


	6. Chapter V - The Lion's Den

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin, Pit, and Sofia end up at a mysterious corporation, where they run into some familiar foes, familiar to Pit, at least.

This night was just getting wilder by the second. If the fact that an angel showed up in front of him earlier wasn’t bad enough, he just survived an encounter with what was essentially a grim reaper (which he found odd, because normally you only see an angel  _ after _ encountering the Grim Reaper, but what could he do) and now he had to deal with someone who looked like they walked right out of that 2004 Van Helsing movie. Not to mention the fact that the three all wanted his glove. It’s not that he didn’t understand why they wanted the glove, but it was all starting to get a bit repetitive is all.

It was almost a breath of relief when, while being confronted by the Van Helsing girl, Kevin felt the rekindling of the justice fire in his soul. Looking to find that Pit and Van Helsing were bickering amongst each other, Kevin took the opportunity of distraction to make his escape, jumping to the top of the nearby building. He could hear the girl yelling “HEY YOU GET BACK HERE CAPTAIN N!” but he was already long running ahead, no turning back for him. He felt a bit bad leaving Pit behind to deal with her, but Kevin had a feeling that, since Pit could fly, he had no problem escaping from that either.

“Hey, c’mon man you can’t leave me back there like that!”

Speak of the devil, or, rather, angel. Kevin turned to his right to see Pit was flying in pace with him. “Look, I didn’t mean to leave you in the dust like that, but you were distracting Van Helsing, so I seized my chance.”

“You got her name?”

“What? No?”

“You just called her Van Helsing though.”

“Oh, no, that’s my nickname, she looks like she stepped right outta that movie.”

“Movie?”

“Yeah, the one from 2004.” The angel had a quizzical look on his face, as a thought crossed Kevin’s mind; if Pit didn’t even know what a car was, he probably had no clue what a movie was. “You know what, we’ll watch it when I come visit you.”

Pit just shrugged. “Alrighty. So, where are you headed? Any place in particular, or, you know, just away from Van Helsing?”

“Heh, it’s a bit weird to explain. You see, I kind of get this burning feeling somewhere deep inside that almost acts like a compass, like I know I’m headed in the right direction through it. Where it leads me, I dunno until I get there. But usually there’s some problem needed solving, or day needed saving, so it all works out.”

“... if you have a burning deep inside you should get that checked out.”

“Not like that, man. Ugh, never mind. Why are you sticking around anyways? Not that you’re not cool, but I’d thought you’d head back to Skyworld or whatever.”

“Well, I mean, I would, but you still got that glove.”

“I thought we were done arguing about the glove!”

“We are! I’m just highly suggesting, as a good guy you just met, to give it over because I know you’re a good guy too, and I want to help you live as long as possible!”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Thank y-”

“No.”

“What?”

“I thought about it. My answer’s no.”

Pit crossed his arms and pouted slightly. “I feel like you didn’t give it any thought at all.”

“Look, dude, the thing’s stuck on my hand! Not to mention that we both know I’m doing a good thing with this. If I lose this, I can’t do that anymore! What’s a superhero with no power?”

“I mean, look at Van Helsing.”

“Okay, medieval Batman doesn’t count.”

“Alright, now you’re just making things up, there is no way that something called ‘Batman’ exists.”

“... Your mind is going to be blown if we ever get around to watching a movie.”

“Wait, Batman is a real thing? WHAT?”

“Regardless, Van Helsing has had years of training, or at least it looks like that considering how flawlessly she set the Reaper on fire. I don’t got years of training! I’m still in high school!”

“I’m sure you’ll get there someday.”

“Doesn’t really help right now though!”

Through their conversation of bouncing off rooftops and flying, the pair reached their destination. It was a tall building in the financial district downtown, whose sign read ‘Adis Corporation.’ Pit landed on the rooftop next to Kevin and took in the surroundings. “Huh, so your heart-flame lead us to a tower,” mused the angel.

“Please never call it that again. But yeah, seems that way.”

“So, uh, does the problem usually present itself immediately or is there some kind of delay on it?”

“Nah, it usually presents itself fairly quickly. Don’t know why it’s taking so long this time.”

As if on cue, a taxi pulled up at the front of the building. This wasn’t an unusual site, seeing as it was a major city and all, but neither Kevin nor Pit had anticipated what was to come next. “HEY, LETTERMAN AND ANGEL!” Kevin and Pit both looked down to see that the person that had just stepped out of the taxi was, in fact, Van Helsing herself.

“Jeezum crow, did she follow us all the way here?” Pit asked, surprised.

“God, what did she pay that cabbie to keep on pace with us?”

“YOU BETTER BOTH COME DOWN HERE SO WE CAN FINISH THE CONVERSATION!”

“Is she serious?” Kevin incredulously uttered.

“That’s some dedication to her job.”

“I’LL GIVE YOU FIVE!” They could see her pull something very long and axe like out of her coat.

“Geez, a count of five, does she think we’re actually five?” Kevin scoffed.

“I just want to know how much space her coat has in it.”

“FIVE!” And with that, she launched five axes into the air, all arching very high. Pit and Kevin quickly realized they were going to land right where they were standing, and they quickly jumped back right as the axes fell where they stood.

“JESUS CHRIST!”

Pit looked lost in thought for a second before his face turned to one of clarity. “Oh, I get it! She said she’d give us five and then she threw five, ha ha ha, that’s clever!”

Kevin looked stupefied at his companion, was there no way that he didn’t really react shocked to that, had he faced that many axes before? “You’re just unreal at times man.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“... sure.”

“YOU COMI-WHAT THE HELL? GET OFF ME!”

Pit and Kevin quickly ran to the edge of the roof, minding the axes, and looked down, to see that Van Helsing getting dragged inside by two security guards. Except Pit didn’t see two guards.

“Monoeyes? What the hell are they doing here?”

“The hell’s a Monoeye?”

“...Are you honestly trying to tell me that you saw nothing wrong with what just happened down there?”

“I mean, it was weird that security guards dragged someone inside, rather than throwing someone out, but other than that, no?”

“You didn’t see the giant floating red blobs with the one giant eyeball in the middle of their body? The ones that just dragged Van Helsing inside?”

“Those were just normal guards, man.”

Pit stood away from the edge, in shock. “Does this mean the Underworld Army has a kind of cloaking device against humans in place?” he muttered to himself, before turning back to Kevin. “We need to get inside, as soon as possible.”

“I was gonna suggest that anyways, since, you know, they just kidnapped Van Helsing, and even if she is giving us a hard time and basically just tried to kill us, she did save our keisters back there, so we kinda should repay that.”

“I guess. You think this is what the heart-flame was calling you to earlier?”

“Nah, it’s never really predicted events before, I usually arrive as it's in progress.”

“Huh, weird. So, how do we get in? The normal entrance seems too obvious”

“Right. Maybe there’s an entrance on the roof?”

“Ooo, maybe, let me check.” Pit flew off, and within a second was back. “Okay, good news, there’s no entrance on the roof.”

“How is that good news?”

“It means I don’t have to fly you up to the roof. You look kinda heavy.”

“Okay, first off, wasn’t going to say fly us both up to the roof, I would have said go in and open the window so I can jump across.”

“Oh, that makes more sense.”

“And second, what do you mean I look kinda heavy?!? You’re abnormally strong, you should have no problem lifting me!”

“Lifting and flying while carrying are two completely different animals! You try flying while carrying someone and see how much of a strain that is!”

“How can I without wings!”

“That’s a you problem!”

“ANYWAYS, how else can we get inside?”

“Well, the plan about me getting inside and opening the window isn’t a bad one. I  _ could _ try to dash through the main entrance, though I’d have to be careful not to let any of the Monoeyes, or anything else that might be there, catch me.”

As Pit carried on with his thinking of a plan, Kevin merely pointed the glove at the window parallel to them, and shot an energy bolt at it, shattering the glass. Pit just turned and stared blankly at it for a second. “... or, you know, we could just do that.” The two jumped across the street and through the now open frame.

 

* * *

 

When he and Captain N jumped through the open window, Pit was expecting to land on some kind of floor, he wasn’t sure what kind of floor, but some floor. He was not expecting to instantly be free falling. Neither was the Captain, for that matter, who had briefly yelled “What the hell!?!” at the beginning of their descent. To their surprise, they landed on a soft, padded surface, almost like a mattress.

“Well,” Pit said after landing, “who would have thought that there would be this many windows on the outside for floors that didn’t exist?” He looked upwards to see that it had been quite a long fall from the window they entered through.

Captain N looked around too, and remarked: “Yeah, it’s weird, also it looked like an office building looking from the outside windows!”

“Admiring the design?” a disembodied voice rang out. It sounded like a woman in her 20’s. “Thanks! I did it myself.”

Pit thought for a minute. He recognized the voice from somewhere, though he hadn’t heard it in a long while. It shortly clicked, and he yelled out. “Pandora!”

A panel on the wall lit up, revealing itself to be a screen. Showing on the screen were three people, sitting in chairs, two women and one man. The woman on the left had long blue hair up in a ponytail, and wore a purple and white outfit, matching her purple eyes. The man, sitting in the middle, was a tall, skinny man with long wavy hair and short well kept facial hair in a purple suit. The woman on the right had pale white skin, and snakes in her hair, wearing a long dark purple dress. Pit immediately recognized her as the Goddess of Darkness, Medusa.

The woman on the left spoke up. “Oh Pit, you recognized me! I’m so glad, it’s been such a long time, how are you?”

Pit looked confused. The woman definitely just spoke with the voice of the goddess of chaos, but Pit never remembered her in a form like this. Normally she had the form of a large floating blue flame with a face, not a human-like appearance in line with the other gods. “Pandora? You have a human form? Since when? … is this how you built that parking lot in your labyrinth?”

“I got it at some point between our last battle and now. And no, as I told you, I built it through hard work and determination.”

“Look, as much as I just love this meaningless banter,” Medusa interrupted, “we do have business to attend to, so we have minimal time as is.”

“Good to see you again too Medusa.”

“Medusa?!?” Captain N yelled, quickly covering his eyes.

“...why are you doing that?” Pit asked of his companion.

“Because if you look at Medusa, you turn to stone.”

“OH THIS STUPID RUMOR AGAIN,” Medusa said, exasperated. “Look, the only reason why that rumor persists is due to a bad PR guy, there’s no truth to it.”

“Yeah, if there was I would have been stone a long time ago,” Pit added.

Captain N reopened his eyes and looked at the screen. He seemed to fixate on the guy in the middle. “Wait a minute, your Hadrian Dolofonos, I’ve seen you on the news.”

“What can I say?” the man in the middle said. “I am rather well known and liked by the media. Yes, you caught me, I am Hadrian Dolofonos. Though you shouldn’t be too surprised, since you did break into my company’s building.” Something about the voice was very familiar to Pit, setting off a red flag in his mind, though he couldn’t place from where he knew it.

“But back to the matter at hand,” Dolofonos continued. “Mr. Keene, Pit.”

“Wait, HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?” Captain N yelled.

“Oh, I’m well aware of many things Mr. Keene. I’ve had tabs on you ever since you picked up that glove adorning your hand. As for you, Pit, I know of you from my colleagues, whom you have already clearly recognized.”

“If you’re helping with the buildup of the Underworld Army, you’re making a mistake!” Pit warned.

Dolofonos laughed. “Oh, naive little Pit. How little you truly know. The fact of the matter is, I’m helping to create a new, more powerful Underworld Army. I mean, do you know how many weapons were just sitting around in the Lunar Sanctum, gathering dust?”

“So you’re responsible for the attack on the Lunar Sanctum!”

“Of course I was! What, did you think Pandora or Medusa here were? They were too busy being watched by pretty Palutena and her watchdogs.” Again, another red flag after pretty Palutena, but still nothing. “And, well, I took it upon myself to, ahem,  _ borrow _ some of them to create new, more powerful underworld troops. That’s why we lured you inside.”

“How’d you manage to control Captain N’s heart-flame?”

“I told you not to call it that again.” Captain N sighed.

“Oh, we couldn’t do that… whatever that meant,” Dolofonos explained. “As I said, we’ve been keeping tabs on you for a while now, and we saw that fight downtown, nifty stuff. We also saw how that girl saved you, taking out the Reaper and everything. Well, imagine our surprise when you three showed up outside our building! All we had to do was whisk her inside, and then, knowing your goody-two-shoes personalities, we knew you’d come in to rescue your friend.”

“Well, she’s not exactly our friend. She saved u, yes, but we’ve only known her for maybe 15 minutes.”

“Yeah,” Captain N added, “the only reason we came in was because she did save us before. And immediately after she saved us she started nagging us.”

“Regardless of the nagging though, we did come to save her, so let her go!”

“Well that’s the thing,” Dolofonos admitted, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck. “We did have her, for maybe a minute. As soon as she got into the elevator, she disappeared. The elevator arrived at the next floor with two dead Monoeyes and no prisoner.”

“And that’s why you shouldn’t leave me alone in an elevator when I don’t want to be in one.”

Pit and Captain N jumped in surprise and quickly turned to find that Van Helsing had joined them in the room. “What the! How did you get in here?”

“Panel in the floor over there. Lead straight up from the elevator shaft, all I had to do was climb up.”

Medusa and Dolofonos both acted in surprise this time, yelling “What?” angrily, before pointedly glaring at Pandora. Pandora, in turn, looked affronted, and scoffed. “Nobody likes my design choices! I think an elevator leading to a battle chamber is a great idea! I’m leaving.” And with that she did.

“Battle chamber?!?” The trio of heroes uttered in shock.

Medusa sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Note to self, don’t let the goddess of chaos make anymore design choices.”

Dolofonos brought the topic back on track, “Nice of you to join us Ms. Morris. And yes, battle chamber. The reason why you’re here is to test the ability of our new soldiers. It should have no problem dealing with you three, which means that it could take on and win against anything. Now, when we come back we expect you all to be dead like good obedient little children. Goodbye Mr. Keene, Ms. Morris.” Dolofonos smirked as he took a small break before slyly saying, “Pitty-pat.”

In that one instant, Pit recognized the voice immediately, and it sent a shiver down his spine. He could feel a rage building in him, erupting in him screaming the true identity of Hadrian Dolofonos: “HADES!”

Dolofonos, now identified as the Lord of the Underworld, simply laughed, which turned into a cackle, as the screen turned off, returning to its appearance as a normal wall panel. Before any of the heroes could properly process the events that transpired, a panel in the ceiling opened up, and out dropped a figure, that landed in the middle of the room, causing the heroes to jump back in a circle around it. It appeared to be another angel, very similar to Pit in dress and wings, but not in appearance. He wore a black toga, rather than a white one, and had black wings that matched Pit’s white ones. On his back, instead of a bow, appeared to be a black and white sword. Other than that though, their physiques were similar, though this figure had short brown hair, as opposed to Pit’s messy longer brown hair. 

The dark angel stood up, and pulled out his sword, revealing his face. As the dark angel got into a fighting stance, Captain N recognized the face and gasped. 

“Nester?!?”


	7. Chapter VI - The Dark Angel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our heroes get into their first major team battle against a foe!

When she arrived at the downtown shockwave site earlier that night and saw that there was an angel, Sofia Morris knew that by the end of the night she would be fighting an angel. She did not anticipate, however, that it would be against a completely different angel than the first one she encountered. At least, she presumed that a fight against the dark angel that had landed in front of her was imminent, if what Hadrian Dolofonos, or Hades, according to Pit, said was true. The idea of supernatural super soldiers shook her to the very core; her work would be cut out for her in the coming days if that came to fruition. That is, so long as she survived this fight, which, depending on what these soldiers were capable of, wasn’t a definite. But she didn’t have time to think about that now, there was a more pressing matter to attend to.

She was about as shocked as Pit was to find that Captain N recognized the dark angel. “Wait,” the light angel shouted, “You know this guy?”

“Yeah! I saw him only a week ago. Though he was much more… human then.”

“They made him into an angel,” Sofia muttered, incredulously. She had dealt with many creatures before, angels of both the normal and fallen varieties included, but she never put too much thought into where they came from. She had just presumed the popular doctrine: good souls become angels upon death, and angels that fall from grace become fallen angels. She never thought an angel could be made while they were still human.

“Well of course they made him into an angel!” Pit interjected. “That’s how angels are made! A god chooses a person and makes them an angel, and then they’re bound to the god until the god says otherwise. Though the person has to be willing to do so. Hey, N! You said you knew him, did he seem like the kind of guy to make that kinda deal?”

Captain N thought for a minute. “Only if it could benefit him. But there’d be no way that it could benefit…” The Captain’s words slowed down as he looked at the face of the dark angel. Sofia glanced over too. The fact that the dark angel had been sitting in both silence and inaction had unsettled her already, but looking now and seeing the sinister grin and piercing eyes on the dark angel’s face aimed directly at Captain N made her come to a realization that the captain seemed to have simultaneously: “Me, he wants me.”

“Why you?” Pit asked, inquisitively.

“He was the first guy I stopped as a superhero. Added onto our previous history of rivalry, I could see why he would want some revenge.”

“Ah, I see. Well, we shouldn’t have to worry. When I first got my powers, I was super weak. Couldn’t even fly or anything. So he should be no…”

At that moment the dark angel decided to make his move. He dashed forward, flying straight into Captain N, grabbing him by the scruff of his letterman jacket, and dragging him upwards. Before either Pit or Sofia could react, the dark angel pulled Captain N out of the open window that Pit and N had entered through and into the night.

Sofia had a feeling about the event that was coming next, and she didn’t want a repeat of earlier. So, as a precaution, she discreetly pulled out her whip and cracked it so that it wrapped around Pit’s leg. As she did so she quipped, “No problem, eh?”

“Well, look, how was I supposed to-YOWCH!” Pit looked down at his leg and noticed the whip wrapped around it. He tried to wriggle out of it, to no avail. He gave a pointed look at Sofia.

Sofia simply pointed upwards, and said deadpan, “Fly, you fool.”

Pit gave her a confused look, but nevertheless, he took off at full speed. Sofia realized the potential mistake that she just made, but realized that potentially dislocating her arms was being better than being left behind in an evil warmongering company run by a god, as well as potentially losing her quarry for the second time in one night. She grasped on her end of the whip tightly as she was very quickly pulled upwards and out of the open window.

 

* * *

 

Kevin didn’t know why he didn’t expect what happened to happen when Pit said the words “We shouldn’t have to worry.” The light angel had already jinxed them before during the Reaper fight, so why should this be any different. Nevertheless, Kevin expected that he would be beaten up, ruthlessly be thrashed, something. He didn’t expect to get a midnight flight down the middle of New Athens. But that’s what he ended up with. Life is weird that way.

Kevin expected to be caught by a mass of G-Force and or wind resistance, whatever the proper term was, he wasn’t a science guy, but instead, he found he could breathe normally, and there wasn’t a rush of air blowing in his face like on a rollercoaster. Perhaps this was how Pit was able to hold such good conversation while flying, by his being some freak of science.

Being lost in thought, Kevin hadn’t even realized that his captor was flying just low enough to be hitting every little object on every roof, and hitting the tops of every tree that passed by. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but it was definitely an annoyance. He turned up to look at his captor. He could barely believe that this was the same guy who just a week ago was robbing a convenience store with an elephant foot. Then again, he could barely believe that a week ago he would have become an official superhero either.

“Hey, Nester!”

No response, the dark angel only flew forward with that sinister grin on his face.

“Nester! Talk to me man!”

Still nothing. Kevin tried to wriggle free, but the angel’s grip was tight. As another satellite dish smacked into his face, no doubt disrupting someone’s signal, Kevin sighed; this was going to be a long flight.

 

* * *

 

Pit flew out of the window as fast as he could. He had never faced another angel before, so this was going to be a very interesting challenge. As he flew down the open street towards the faint black blob in the distance, he could feel that he was flying slower, almost as if it was more laborious to do so. He was still going fast, but it seemed like something was dragging him back. Pit then remembered the fact that Van Helsing, who Hades had referred to as “Ms. Morris”, had whipped his leg earlier. Maybe the whip, which to his knowledge was still attached to his leg, had snagged on something.

Lo and behold, the whip was indeed still attached, and something was on the other end of the whip. It was, in fact, Van Helsing. What the hell? “Van Helsing, what are you doing?” Pit yelled down at the person on the other end of the whip.

“WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE I’M DOING? I’M HOLDING ON FOR MY DEAR LIFE! AND HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT DRACULA?”

“Who’s Dracula?”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHO’S DRACULA? YOU SHOULD KNOW YOU BROUGHT UP THE WHOLE VAN HELSING THING!”

“I don’t know what Van Helsing is! N just called you that so I did too!”

“WELL YOU DON’T HAVE TO!”

“What should I call you then?”

“SOFIA, SEEING AS THAT’S MY NAME!”

“Alright Sofia, why are you down there?”

“YOU WERE ABOUT TO LEAVE ME BEHIND IN THERE! I’VE BEEN LEFT BEHIND ENOUGH TIMES TONIGHT ALREADY, I’M NOT MISSING OUT ON THIS ONE!”

“Fair enough.”

“AND AS MUCH AS I DON’T WANT YOU BEING A POTENTIAL THREAT ON EARTH, FOR NOW I THINK IT’D BE ADVANTAGEOUS TO MAKE AN ALLIANCE, ALBEIT TEMPORARY!”

“Works for me.”

“EXCELLENT! SO, WHAT’S THE PLAN?”

“Well, this new angel’s body, while adapting quickly, still can’t completely handle the full power of being an angel, so eventually he will tire. I intend to be there when he does. Hopefully, they land someplace soft.”

“HOW LONG WILL THAT TAKE?”

“I dunno. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“WELL, CAN WE AT LEAST LAND SO I CAN CATCH MY BREATH?”

Curious, Pit thought, why did she need to catch her breath? Normally when people flew with him, they didn’t have a problem. Maybe there was like a bubble? And Sofia was out of it? Pit didn’t know the answer to that. But that wasn’t the most pressing at the moment. “Sorry, but no can do! We can’t even lose them for one second!”

“NOT EVEN WITH MY TRACKER?”

“What?”

“MY TRACKER, I PLACED A TRACKER ON YOU BOTH BACK AT OUR FIRST MEETING! THAT’S HOW I FOLLOWED YOU TWO!”

“Ohhhh, that makes a lot of sense now.”

“CAN WE LAND NOW?”

“Oh yeah sure.”

Pit flew to a nearby rooftop and landed, where Sofia landed flat on the ground, gasping for air. She shortly caught her breath, and stood up, dusting herself off. “Thanks.”

“About this tracker?”

“Yeah!” Sofia pulled a device out of her coat. It was small, and black, with a screen that flipped open and a circular pad at the bottom. On the back of the device, it read “Light Laboratories.” Sofia fiddled with the device before showing the screen to Pit. It was a rudimentary map of the surrounding area, showing where all the paths of travel were in relation to obstructions. On the screen, there were two blips: one moving quickly, the other remaining stationary. Pit figured that the moving one was Captain N and the stationary one was himself. “If what you say is true, all we have to do is wait for that blip to stop moving. At that point, we’ll know where the two of them ended up, and we can race there, without me having to be dragged around by a whip.”

“Nifty device.”

“I have my connections,” Sofia stated, smiling and sitting down on the central air unit atop the roof. “Incidentally, how did you figure that I tracked you two down?”

Pit sat next to her on the unit. “Well, we thought you were tracking the two of us looking out the window, watching us, and alerting the driver as you went along.”

Sofia chuckled. “Hammer is a good driver, but he’s not that good.”

The two sat in silence for a bit. “So,” Pit started, breaking the silence, “What does it mean to be a ‘medieval Batman?’”

 

* * *

 

Kevin wasn’t really sure how long he had been flying with the dark angel. It had been a significant amount of time, to be sure, but what that time was he didn’t know. Honestly, he had lost track of everything after the 50th weather vane hit him in the face, he never realized how many there actually were in this city.

It was bizarre, the whole situation. Being flown around at the mercy of someone else was both comforting and not. Comforting in the sense that it didn’t require him to do any work, but not because he had no control of the situation whatsoever, meaning he could end up wherever. Although he was sure that as long as Nester was in charge of the flight path, Kevin would be suffering a brunt of objects hitting him in the face.

Kevin then realized something. The glove’s shield had enough power behind it to knock Pit away from it, why wouldn’t it do the same for Nester? Of course, if this were to work, it would probably mean that Kevin would be immediately dropped, and in that event, he didn’t want to land on some kinda hard concrete, or any hard surface for that matter. While the glove did help healing somewhat, it wasn’t perfect, so a hard fall would still hurt like hell.

Fortunately, Kevin looked down and saw that they were flying above Ares Park, specifically over the lake in the center. Water tension, while still very hard, could be potentially less pain than if he had landed on concrete. Kevin looked back up at his captor. The dark angel appeared to be growing tired, almost as if all these aerial acrobatics were taking a lot out of him. Why not lighten the load a bit more?

Kevin raised his hand up and turned on the shield, as it had done with the light angel earlier, the dark angel bounced off the shield like it was a trampoline, causing him to lose his grip on the teen. Kevin fell fast and plunged into the depths of the lake.

 

* * *

 

“So how did your hat stay on while we were flying? If you were experience air resistance to cause you to lose your breath, wouldn’t the hat have flown off too?”

“It’s a well fitting hat,” Sofia answered, as they were interrupted by a chirp from the device. She flipped the screen upwards and muttered, “Crap.”

“What?”

“Tracker’s busted. Got water in it.”

“You can make a tracker but not make it waterproof?”

“Look, I didn’t design it, I just use it.” Sofia jumped off the unit, and walked to the edge of the building. “Well, probably the best place to start searching is the last place the signal read from, which is…” she looked at the screen, fiddling around a bit. “Dead center of Ares Park. Which means that either the dark angel is trying to drown the Captain, or they crashed in the middle of the lake.”

Sofia stuck out her arms so that she was almost in a position indicative of Christ the Redeemer. Pit stood there, staring at her curiously. “Uh, what are you doing?”

Sofia rolled her eyes. “ _ Asserting my dominance _ . Look, I’ve flown before, I know the best way for this to work just grab my arms and hoist me up that way.”

Pit did just that, and off they flew towards their destination. “Wait you’ve flown before?”

“Yeah, you’d be surprised how much flying you do when you know a giant bat.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin surfaced from his plunge into the lake, gasping for air. He was mindful to try not to get too much water in his mouth, the lake was surprisingly more dirty than it looked. Looking around, he was surprised to not see the dark angel anywhere. Perhaps he had given up the hunt when he realized he dropped his prize. 

Time slowed as Kevin spun around in the water, turning to find the dark angel flying along the surface of the water straight at him. Kevin quickly ducked back into the water, narrowly avoiding the angel as he zipped overhead, swooping back up to dive again. This guy is almost animalistic in his attacks, Kevin thought. What the hell had Hades done to turn Nester into this. 

Kevin resurfaced and looked up to see the dark angel looping around to take another dive at him. He pulled up his arm and started firing shots at the angel. It appeared that some definitely hit, but it seemed to neither deter nor stop his attacker. Kevin ducked back under the water to avoid the swooping angel. As soon as the angel passed, Kevin resurfaced and began firing again. Thus began a cycle of attacking and dodging.

 

* * *

 

Pit and Sofia arrived at the lake to find what almost appeared to be a laser light show going on. Upon closer inspection they found it to be the blasting from Captain N’s gloves towards the dark angel, who was dive bombing the hero in the lake. “I think we found them,” Pit remarked.

“Perfect. Drop me off. You go take the angel head on, since you can fly. I’ll provide cover from the ground. Once the Captain is out of the water, I’m sure he’ll cover you too.”

“Gotcha!” Pit swooped down towards the ground, letting go of Sofia before lifting back into the air. Sofia somersaulted into a crouched position, and reached into her coat, pulling out a crossbow. Loading a bolt into the bow, she aimed at the dark figure floating over the lake and began firing.

Pit trusted that she would shoot at the right angel, and not at him. He hoped the white of his toga and wings reflecting the moonlight would be enough to distinguish him from the target. But then again, he would be pretty much right next to the target at all times, so there was a risk. Pit looked forward and saw the dark angel was preparing for another dive bomb. As he began to descend, Pit sped forward, flying straight into the dark angel, knocking him off course. The dark angel reeled back from the impact, but soon recovered. He looked between the light angel and the hero in the water, before deciding that the other angel was more of a threat and flew full speed towards him, pulling out his blade.

Captain N noticed this and began to swim towards shore, where he saw Van Helsing shooting at the sky with a crossbow. As he reached the shore, he called out to her, “Hey Van Helsing, about time you two showed up!”

“The name’s Sofia,” Sofia answered, not even missing a single beat in her firing. “And, well, it’s not like you made it easy. You making a habit of leave the two of us behind?”

“Wasn’t intentional this time!” Captain N retorted, taking a stance similar to Sofia’s and beginning to fire up at the dark angel.

Meanwhile, the fight between the two angels had very quickly turned into a short range sword fight. Pit had pulled out his bow, splitting it into the twin blades to counter the dark angel’s sword. As the two angels danced through the air, avoiding energy beams and crossbow bolts left and right while slashing at each other, Pit began to notice that the dark angel was progressively getting more tired. Pit figured he was right, that the angel’s body wasn’t used to the amount of power it now had, and was getting tired. If that was true, it was only a matter of time before the dark angel misstepped.

The misstep came about faster than Pit had anticipated. Within a minute of his thought, the dark angel got hit with a crossbow bolt that nicked one of his wings. The dark angel began to lose altitude, and while doing so, the dark angel made one last ditch attempt at an attack on Captain N. He angled his descent that he would be direct in line with the Captain, and he began to descend very quickly. Acting fast, Pit once again flew into the side of the dark angel, veering him of course once more. The dark angel crashed on the ground and skidded to a stop in a field past the two humans.

Pit landed next to Captain N and Sofia, and they all went to inspect the fallen angel. He was out cold. Captain N knelt down next to him and said: “I’m sorry that this had to happen to you, I’ll make it right somehow.” He stood back up, asking, “So, what do we do now? We can’t just leave him like this.”

“Well, first things first.” Pit reached down to the top of the dark angel’s head, where a black laurel rested. Pit took it off of the angel’s head, and snapped it in two.

 

* * *

 

“Damn,” the lord of the underworld exclaimed. “He knew about the laurel. I didn’t think he’d be that clever, he was a lot dumber last we met.”

Medusa chuckled next to him. “You underestimate him, Lord Hades, it has been over 2,000 years since you last fought. And besides, he has his own laurel to talk with Palutena.”

Hades merely grumbled.

“Speaking of Palutena,” Medusa continued, “Since her little errand boy knows about our plan, shouldn’t we have to worry about her being on our tails too?”

A smile returned to Hades’ face as he leaned back in his chair. “Precautions have already been put in place for that. We shouldn’t have to worry about pretty Palutena.” The lord of the underworld clapped his hands together. “Well, that was a productive day!”

Medusa looked at him, confused. “What do you mean? Our enemy found out about our plans, and we also lost one of our soldiers.”

“On the contrary Medusa, we had already lost him. Regardless of what was to happen, Nester would have been no longer useful. If he won, he would have gotten his revenge, thus meaning he’d have no reason to listen to us anymore. I would have killed him as soon as he returned. Since he lost though, it shows that an angel can’t be made from a human fast enough to suit our purposes. We’re going to need to make our own.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“Oh, I have my ways.” Hades stood up and called to one of the Monoeyes outside the room. “Bring Subject Phi in here. I have work for her.”


	8. Chapter VII - Mother Nature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle won, our heroes work out what to do next. Perhaps, even teaming up for a more permanent period.

Following Pit’s removal of the laurel, the trio lifted the unconscious body of the dark angel and began hauling it to some other location. They had all collectively realized the very early hour that it was, and how suspicious it would be to see three people carrying what appeared to be a corpse through a park in the middle of the city at this hour, so as they hauled they discussed their options.

“We can bring this to Hammer, my driver,” Sofia put forward. “He can drive … what’d you say his name was? Nester?”

“Yeah, Nester!”

“Well, he can bring Nester to some connections I have, they can take care of him, no problem.”

“Would these be the same connections that made the tracker?”

“Not that it matters, but yes.”

“Wait, what do you mean by tracker?”

“She had a tracker, N, that’s how she followed us to the Adis Corp building.”

“... you know that makes a lot more sense.”

“I still can’t believe you two actually thought I paid Hammer to follow you by sight alone.”

“Look, how were we supposed to know we were bugged? Is mine still one, by the way?”

“Nah, yours got deactivated when you hit the lake. Mine’s still on though.”

“Well, that’s a bit reassuring.”

“ANYWAYS, I can call Hammer to meet us at the edge of the park, though I will have to drop his arm.”

“No need!” Pit countered. “I have a better idea. We just need to find a really wooded area.”

“... congratulations, we’re standing in the woodiest part of the city.”

“No, I mean a really wooded area, like so thick you can barely see through it.”

“Well, there is the Bramble,” Kevin mused, “but I can’t say off the top of my head where it is.”

“This is your city, and you don’t the location of things in it?” Sofia snarked, pulling out the tracker device, fiddling around with it for a minute or so, and then stated, “Okay, it’s north of us, we keep going down this path, then across a bridge and we should be good.”

Once the directions had been set in everyone’s mind, and they continued their forward motion, Kevin retorted, “Look, I live in the Burbs! I don’t come into the city this often. Hell, this past week has been the most I’ve ever been to the city in the past 5 years. You’re one to talk, having to pull out a map to look it up!”

“I never said I was from around here.”

“Then why did you show up if you’re not from around here?”

“You could ask Pit the same question.”

“She has a point there, N.”

“And besides, I am living in the area,  _ temporarily _ . I’m dealing with a situation in the Shawangunks, and I was to leave after that resolved. But now, with this whole Adis Corp situation, it looks like I’m gonna be staying here a bit longer.”

“The Gunks? Up in Empire? What’s happening up there?”

“The long and short of it is giants are angry with miners. I’m there to be the mediator.”

“Huh, that’s actually kind of interesting.”

“Believe me, when you’re in my line of work, that’s the mundane aspects.”

“At least you two get to do stuff,” Pit interjected, “you being a hero and you being a mediator for giants, whatever that means. I’ve spent the last 2,000 or so years doing nothing, just running errands.”

“So this was your first time out in a while then? Huh, no wonder you wanted my glove so badly.”

“Not technically yours, but whatever.”

By this point, the troupe had entered into the Bramble, and soon found themselves plunged into darker darkness then they anticipated. Going into a heavily wooded area during the day brought enough shadows and shade, but then going into it during the night was downright blinding, in the complete opposite usage of the term than usual. The troupe somehow managed to find their way to a place in the middle of the Bramble, next to a giant rock formation. Pit stopped moving, as did the others. He walked over to the rocks and knocked on one.

“Viridi, are you there?”

There seemed to be no response, so Pit continued knocking. Eventually, the rocks started slowly moving, and a glowing red eye appeared on the rock. Pit jumped back from the sudden movement, and the other heroes responded in kind, preparing their respective weapons for an attack. Pit readjusted himself to the situation and waved his hands to stop. “No, guys, don’t attack, it’s just Cragalanche, he’s cool!”

Kevin and Sofia looked at each other incredulously, before turning back to Pit. “Cragalanche?” they both asked.

“Yeah! He’s kinda Viridi’s bodyguard! But it’s alright!” Pit turned back to the giant rock creature. “Cragalanche! Can you contact Viridi for me? I need to speak with her.”

The rock creature gave no response. Kevin opened his mouth to ask if he was doing anything, when he heard a voice ring in his head. He presumed that everyone else heard it too, judging by the surprised reaction on Sofia’s face, probably matching a similar look that he was wearing.

“Ugh, this is such a late hour, who is it? What do you want?” The voice sounded young, very young, almost like that of a young girl, maybe 10 years old.

“Viridi! It’s me, Pit! We need to talk!”

“Pit? Where are you? Usually, when you need me you just fly over.” The voice, which apparently belonged to whoever this Viridi was, gasped. “WAIT YOU’RE ON EARTH! WHY ARE YOU THERE? YOU KNOW THAT’S A NOT GOOD THING! GET BACK TO SKYWORLD RIGHT NOW!”

“I could ask the same thing of you, seeing as you have Crag down here.”

“...fair point. Look, we both know the rule is stupid, so I won’t get you in trouble if you don’t get me in any.”

“Deal.”

“Alright Pit, so what did you want to talk about?”

“Can we talk in your Sanctuary?”

“Do you want me to bring up your two friends too?”

Kevin and Sofia interrupted with hasty replies of “We’re not really friends,” and “We just met,” and “Only acquaintances!” Pit in turn simply responded “Three. Three friends.”

“... you know, as much as you want Crag to be your friend, he doesn’t really count.”

“No, not Crag, though you might want to bring him up soon too, especially with all the Reapers around.”

“Good thinking, for once.”

“Why do none of you gods think I ever have any good ideas!”

“Who else doesn’t think so?”

“Arlon mainly, and then Palutena backed him up.”

Viridi laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one. I’m gonna have to congratulate Arlon on that one.”

“Alright, laugh at the angel, sure. Can you please bring us four up now?”

“You still never said who the fourth person was!”

Pit pointed at the unconscious dark angel, who was now lying on the path, the three of them having put him down during their conversation with Viridi.

“Oh wow, didn’t even notice him. Wait, are those angel wings?”

“Indeed they are Viridi.”

“Huh, you’re not so alone in the universe anymore then, Icarus!”

“Gee, thanks Viridi.”

“Alright, alright, you’ll be up in a second.”

Viridi’s voice faded away as a green light fell onto the two humans and two angels. Projections of leaves started to whirl around them as they were suddenly sucked upwards and away from the Earth.

 

* * *

 

The teleportation up to Skyworld was… nerve racking, to say the least. Being transformed into pure energy only to become matter again in the span of a few seconds would be enough to unsettle anyone. Kevin didn’t understand how Pit could do this as often as he did, or, well, he presumed the angel did, judging by the nonchalant attitude he had about the teleporting.

Where they landed, Kevin guessed it was Viridi’s Sanctuary, was an Edenic paradise. A lush forest sprung up around them, filled with animals of all shapes and sizes, and plants of every variety. It was hard to believe that this was all located inside a Parthenon like building, as Pit had explained when they first arrived.

Kevin and Sofia were sitting on the edge of a small pond. Across the pond, they could see Pit and the goddess of nature talking. Kevin and Sofia intended to be their for the discussion, but Viridi herself stopped them. “No offense, but humans and I have always had a rocky relationship, so I’d prefer the information out of anyone else’s mouth, even his.” And off they went, leaving the two humans behind them. Kevin wasn’t really sure why the goddess hated humanity, perhaps because of humans abuse of nature?

Turning to his companion, who was kicking her feet in the water to pass the time, Kevin mentioned, “Hard to believe that Mother Nature herself looks like a kid, huh?” This was true. Viridi did have a very youthful appearance, matching her voice. The goddess stood less than 5 feet tall, and had appeared to be about age 10 or so, though seeing as she was a goddess that didn’t mean anything about age. She was a towhead, with her hair in a ponytail reaching down past her waist. Dotting her hair and red dress were various different types of flowers, with a rose keeping the ponytail tied.

“I’ve learned not to be surprised.”

“Because of your work?”

“Mhm.”

“So, besides the whole mediator thing, what is your work anyways?”

“Well, it’s best described like this. You’re a superhero, right? You stop bad guys, but on a small scale. I do the same thing, but on a global scale, but only with supernatural figures.”

“Supernatural figures?”

“Yeah, ghosts, goblins, demons, stuff like that. The things that go bump in the night.”

“So we both do our best to save humanity then.”

“Precisely. Though,  you went in willingly. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Well, willingly is debatable.”

“You chose to put the glove on.”

“Fair enough.”

“I didn’t have a glove choice. It’s the family business, I had to take it up.”

“Pressure from the family?”

“... not exactly.”

By this point Pit and Viridi had come back around to the side of the pond Kevin and Sofia were on, having seemingly finished their conversation. The two humans stood up and walked over to them.

“Okay,” the goddess of nature started, “this is bad news. I had a feeling that this might be the case after I noticed how relieved Medusa seemed when I switched the subject at the conference earlier, but this just confirms it. The Underworld Army must be stopped.” Viridi pointed at the two humans. “But don’t think I’m doing this for humanity’s sake, I’m doing it for the planet, for the wildlife. A war would cause devastation on a massive scale, so I want to avoid that at all costs. I can’t involve the Forces of Nature directly, but I can keep a portal open between Earth and here, so if sneaking between the worlds is needed I can provide.” Viridi walked over to the dark angel and poked him with her staff. “As for this guy, I don’t know if I make him human again, but I can certainly reverse the damage done both physically by you and psychologically by Hades. But it will take time.”

“Thanks, Viridi, I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t think I’m doing this for you either, Icarus,” the goddess quickly countered, turning away. “Just wrap up your business with these two before I send them back down. Viridi walked away.

The three heroes stood in silence. Sofia was the one to break the silence, saying, “Well, even though I tried to stop you earlier… and threw axes at your heads, it seems more advantageous now for us to team up.”

“Yeah!” Pit agreed. “I mean, look at how well we took down the dark angel! That shows we at least have the capacity to work well together… I think.”

“Mhm. And the teaming works out too, since Pit you have the most knowledge about all this, and Captain, it’d be nice to have someone on Earth to team up with, since Pit can’t necessarily always be here… plus you guys aren’t as bad as you first seemed.”

“Aww, Van Helsing likes us!”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“Fine, but don’t be calling me Captain then, we’re all mature people here.”

“Debatable.”

“Fine, mostly mature. We can refer to each other on a first name basis, so call me Kevin.”

“Alright, Kevin.”

Pit jumped up and down excitedly. “Aww man! A team! I haven’t been a part of one in such a long time! We can have matching uniforms! And a secret handshake!”

Kevin turned to Sofia and muttered, “I now get what you meant by debatable.” Sofia chuckled. 

“Ooo ooo and a name! We need a name! Something like  _ DEFENDERS AGAINST EVIL _ or  _ PROTECTORS OF THE FREE WORLD _ , or  _ THE JUSTICE LEAGUE _ !”

“Already exists.” Kevin and Sofia answered simultaneously.

“What? That was a good name I can’t believe someone already took it.”

“Anyways,” Sofia interjected, “it’s probably best we parted ways for now. We have a long battle ahead of us.”

“Heck yeah! Let’s go team!” Pit put his hand out. Kevin immediately got what he was going for, and also stuck his hand out. Sofia looked at them both, unamused.

“C’mon Sofia! For the team!” Kevin urged.

Sofia sighed, shaking her head with a smile. “You guys are dorks.” Yet she too put her hand in as well.

* * *

 

Lana had been following these turns of events all night: giant shockwave rocking a block in lower New Athens, sightings of what appeared to be an angel and the Grim Reaper, along with a local vigilante, commotion at the Adis Corporation building, then commotion in Ares Park, all of these stories seemingly connected. It was too odd to not keep tabs on, she figured.

She stood from her desk and collected the report she had been writing as the events occurred. Even in a top secret organization like S.M.A.S.H., bureaucracy managed to sneak its way in. For an organization that prided itself on its secrecy, one would think that it would all be under the table, no paper trail, sorts of deals and assignments. But no. Lana had to write up a report and hand it in to her superior for it to be approved so she could look into it further. Lana sighed. The red tape could really be a hassle at times.

She stepped out of her office and made her way down the corridor. She passed by some of her coworkers, but she paid them no mind: she had a mission. With the number of weird happenings over the past week in the New Athens area increasing, any abnormality would have to take precedent. And a long, connected chain of events like this? It warranted full attention.

Lana reached her destination, her bosses office, and knocked on the door. Lana was lucky, she didn't have as much red tape to cut through as most did: her boss was the big boss of S.M.A.S.H. What he said, goes. So if he approved something of hers, there was no one who could tell her no. And there was no way he could say no to this.

His secretary, Nikki, answered the door.

"Oh? Hello Lana," the secretary greeted warmly.

"Hi Nikki," Lana responded with equal warmth. "Is Big Boss in?"

"Yes, but unfortunately, he's busy. The Monarchs are playing the Federalists tonight. You know how he'll never miss a game."

It was early March, spring training was still weeks away. Lana knew that this was code, however. They were the Monarchs. Their government mediaries in Castle Town were the Federalists. There was a meeting tonight, she figured. Lana sighed, he wouldn't look at her proposal until the morning, that meant. Well, time to go ahead without orders.

Lana handed the report to Nikki. "Of course. When he gets back from the game, will you give this to him? Tell him that I will keep him apprised of all my findings, as to be expected."

"Certainly. Would you like me to pass on anything else?"

"No, that's it, Nikki. Thank you. Good night."

"Same to you Lana."

With that, Lana returned to her office, a smile on her face. She knew that Big Boss would retroactively permit her continued investigation, of course he would, she was his favorite agent. She could get away with murder (not that she would... in most cases) and he would okay it.

Leaning back into her chair and propping her feet on her desk, Lana grabbed a photo that she included in her report. A drone had managed to capture a glimpse at the commotion in Ares Park. The three figures appeared to be in their teens: two boys and a girl. One of the boys appeared to be the angel that had been mentioned in reports, due to what looked like wings on his back. Or perhaps that third boy, who they seemed to be carrying and also appeared to sport wings, was that angel. Lana didn't know. Nor did she know the other two, the first boy and the girl. She figured that they may be easier to find, since the "angels" would probably have to hide their identities, what with their wings and all. Her only clue now was the fact that the first boy wore a jacket with a large "N" on it. It was from this that her investigation got its name: Project N.

Lana chuckled, tapping her fingers on the image of the boy with the N jacket. Just who are you, Mr. N? Lana would find out, she knew it would only be a matter of time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was quite the story release, I'm sure. 7 chapters at once. Of course, those that read the original will have probably recognized most of it, so if you did I hope you enjoyed reading it again. As said in the introduction, the next chapter is where the real new stuff starts, which you all got a little taste of at the end of this chapter.
> 
> Next chapter, "Getting to Know You", coming soon, so stay tuned!
> 
> Comments and criticisms are welcome, as always! (I missed typing that)


	9. Chapter VIII - Getting to Know You (Part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sofia brings the newly minted team together for the first time, bringing some new allies into the fold as well.

A team. A team of heroes. Kevin stared at the ceiling of his bedroom, lying on his bed. He was only a hero for a week and he was already in a team. He thought that kind of stuff only happened in comic books. His life had almost become a living comic book. Not that he was complaining, however. It was certainly more interesting than the normal high school life.

Kevin turned his head to look over at the clock on his dresser. 10:00 am. That seemed like a reasonable enough time for a high schooler on the weekend to get up, right? He rolled out of bed and opened the door. He could smell the bacon cooking from down in the kitchen and began to head in that direction.

“Mmm, these eggs are delicious Mrs. Keene!”

The voice sounded very familiar, but there was something different about it. Maybe it was just his tired “just waking up” stupor. He walked into the kitchen to see sitting at the kitchen table, amongst his family, was a dirty blonde haired girl with shoulder length hair that was dressed in the epitome of preppy clothes. She was affixed on the plate of scrambled eggs.

Kevin’s mother noticed Kevin’s entrance and addressed him. “Finally awake I see Kevin. You know it was very rude of you to keep Sofia here waiting!”

“Oh, he didn’t know I was coming, Mrs. Keene, so I don’t blame him.”

Wait, Sofia? Kevin turned back to the girl sitting at the table, and his eyes adjusted a bit more. Holy crap it was Sofia. Kevin now saw why he didn’t recognize her at first. Aside from the hair being put differently, the steely-eyed looks had been replaced with a more bright and bubbly outlook, and her voice seemed to have a higher, more chipper tone to it, as opposed to the gruffer and monotone voice she had the night before.

“Sofia? What are you doing here?”

“Good morning to you too Kevin! Remember that  _ team project _ we were working on? Well, I thought it may be a good idea to get started asap. The sooner we get started, the more work we can do, right? So get dressed!  _ Peter _ ,” she said Peter strangely enough that it instead came out as ‘Piter’, an indication as to who she was really referring to: “is already waiting for us. I’ll wait for you in the cab.” Sofia stood up, bringing her plate over to the sink. “Thank you for the meal Mrs. Keene, it was quite good!”

“Oh, you’re welcome Sofia!”

Sofia made her way to the front door, before smiling brightly, and waving. “Be quick Kevin!” And with that, she left.

Kevin stood in the hallway, awestruck at the events that just transpired. What the hell was this sudden shift in personality? Kevin’s mother looked at him, before figuratively shoving him off with the spatula she was holding. “Go on now! Sofia’s waiting! I’ll make an egg sandwich for you to take on the way.”

Kevin quickly rushed back to his room, throwing back on the letterman he had taken off only a few hours earlier and stuffing his mask in his pocket. The glove he didn’t have to worry about, that was always on him, though nobody seemed to notice. He returned out to the living room, where his mother was waiting for him with a paper bag.

“Here’s your sandwich, sweetie. So, Sofia huh? How come you never told me about her?”

“Well, I haven’t really known her for too long, Mom.”

“Mmhhmm. Well, she does seem like a sweet girl, and all your friends have girlfriends…”

“MOM!”

Kevin’s mother laughed. “Only teasing you dear. Have fun! Call us to let us know what’s happening.”

“Alright, bye mom!” Kevin said, racing out the door to the cab sitting outside the house. He climbed in to see Sofia, the Sofia he had recognized from the prior night, sitting in the back of the cab. Kevin’s eyes widened at how quickly she had changed her appearance.

“About time you showed up. You know I was waiting 45 minutes before you got up. Head back to Light Laboratories, Hammer.” With that, the taxi started, and off they went.

“You didn’t have to come to get me this early, you know.”

“It’s not early. It’s 10 in the morning.”

“Well to me it’s 2. Two early.”

Sofia groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Why of all people did I get stuck with you two as teammates.” She scoffed, adding “Punners.”

“Hey, puns are funny. And you walked into this situation yourself, you killed the Reaper and interrupted our fight.” Kevin paused for a moment before adding, “I never did thank you for that. Dealing with the Reaper as swiftly as you did, that is. And for helping with the whole Nester situation.”

A small smile appeared on Sofia’s face. “Don’t mention it. You weren’t too bad yourself there.”

“Heh, thanks. Maybe I can repay you in some future battle.”

“Maybe, we’ll see,” Sofia responded, then added, “if that’s the case then both you and Pit owe me.”

“I guess you’ve got quite a few repayments coming your way then!” The two laughed, and Kevin continued. “Speaking of Pit, you mentioned he was down here again? Didn’t he mention not to expect him a lot because of the ban?”

“Yeah, I was surprised too. But he said he worked out something with the goddesses, so I’m not gonna question it.”

“Huh, alright.”

“It works out nicely, since I was hoping to get something like this sometime soon.”

“And what, pray tell, is this ‘something like this?’”

“You’ll see.”

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be. You faced a facsimile of the Grim Reaper last night; if you can handle that this’ll be no problem.” A lull in conversation commenced, before Sofia broke the silence again: “Your mother’s nice! When I showed up she offered to make me breakfast and wouldn’t take no for an answer. That’s why we met this morning in the way we did.”

“She is quite nice, though a bit of a jokester.”

“Oh?”

“She said I should date you.”

“Woah, slow down there bucko.”

“Look! It wasn’t my idea, I don’t want to date you!”

“Good.”

“I think it was the preppy girl kind of appearance you had. Why did you do that anyway?”

“I had to be convincing enough that they’d think it was something completely normal, and not something weird. I normally wouldn’t be someone like you’d normally associate with, so I fit the new mold, begrudgingly.” She then added, jokingly, “Plus I was meeting the parents, I had to look my best.”

“Oh, not you too.”

Sofia chuckled, continuing: “Maybe that can be how you repay me even. Treat me to a nice date.”

Groaning, Kevin put his head in his hands: “Now  _ I’m  _ starting to wonder why I’m stuck with you.” This caused Sofia to laugh harder, which eventually caused Kevin to as well. The two of them continued laughing as the taxi made its way out of the burbs further out into Long Island.

 

* * *

 

 

Sofia and Kevin arrived at Light Laboratories around the middle of the morning. The building, expansive in size and white in color, looked exactly how a stereotypical scientific laboratory would be expected to. The white picket fence and the painting of a house on the front, however, was not.

“So this is the place?” Kevin questioned.

“Yes,” Sofia answered. “Light Laboratories. The most secure place in the world.”

“Really now?”

“Uh huh. We can do any and all superhero related things we need to here without worry of discovery. I trust Dr. Light’s assurance of that completely. And I trust him completely in all other situations.”

“You have the utmost trust in a guy who has a house painted on his laboratory?”

“Oh, he didn’t do that, Roll did.”

“Who’s Roll?”

“You’ll meet her soon enough.” 

Sofia smiled and they began walking inside.

“So how do you know these people, the Lights?” Kevin asked.

“I met them on a job. Some strange genetic mutation of one of their… probably former at this point… colleagues got loose. I thought at first it was some sort of new creature I had never come across before. Even though it wasn’t explicitly my job at that point, I helped wrangle the creature, and they’ve helped me out ever since.” As she said this, she flipped open a panel on where the painted mailbox was and pressed a button, causing the front door of the house to disappear. She gestured for Kevin to go first, and the two entered the building.

The inside looked like a receptionist area, which Kevin found odd. Not the fact that there would be a receptionist area in a laboratory, but not one this far out. The laboratory was east of New Athens, isolated in the Pine Barrens of Long Island. It wasn’t in an unpopulated area, but there weren’t that many people coming into this neck of the woods.

“SOFIA!!!”

Snapping Kevin out of his thought, he turned to see Sofia getting tackled by someone. Both of them ended up on the ground and tumbled for a bit. When they both stopped moving, Kevin got a good look at the tackler. She was a bright-eyed blonde haired girl with a ponytail tied with a green ribbon. She wore a red dress with black sleeves and a white neckerchief.

“Roll, what is it?!?” Sofia responded, alarmed. So this was the Roll that Sofia had told him about.

“HI!” Roll answered, cheerily. “I MISSED YOU!”

“Roll, you saw me less than three hours ago.”

Roll pouted. “I know, but I still missed you.” The two of them got up and dusted themselves off.

“Kevin,” Sofia said, “this is the Roll I was talking about.”

“Rolaine Light! But you can call me Roll. A pleasure to meet you!” Roll smiled brightly and waved.

“Nice to meet you too!”

“Where’s Pit?” Sofia asked.

“Over at the simulator,” Roll answered. “Dad and Minerva are giving him a physical exam. I’ll take you.”

The three of them walked down the hall. Along the way, they passed many labs, most of them empty though.

“You know,” Kevin started, “I couldn’t help but notice how big this place is, yet I haven’t really seen anyone else yet.”

“Yeah,” Roll explained. “There used to be a lot more scientists here, a long time ago. But all of them left, it’s just Dad now.” They passed by office after office, names still up: ‘Dr. I. Robotnik,’ ‘Dr. A. Wily,’ ‘Prof. E. Rowan,’ ‘Dr. N. Cortex,’ ‘Dr. H. Emmerich.’ Office after office, name after name, all empty. “It gets lonely sometimes.”

“Is that why you painted the front of the lab like a house?”

“Mhm! To make it feel more, I dunno, homey!”

“I like it!”

“Thank you!” Roll smiled. “And besides, ever since Minerva and Sofia started showing up, it’s been a bit less lonely!” Kevin had noted that while Roll had the appearance of a young to mid-teens, she had the bright eyes and optimism of a child. Not that that was a bad quality, in fact, it was almost impressive to see her maintain that child-like state for as long as she has.

The trio arrived at a small observation room off to the side of the hallway. Through the window, Kevin could see Pit running on a treadmill, very quickly. On either side of him were two scientists. One was an older man with a bushy grey beard in a lab coat, and the other was a young woman, appearing to be in her twenties, with a brown pixie cut. They wore a surprised expression; clearly, neither of them had anticipated the amount of speed that Pit was generating. Kevin noted he wasn’t even running at full speed, or at least it didn’t seem that he was.

“Roll, I see you’re back… oh, we have guests!”

Kevin turned from the window to see that there was another person in the observation room with them. The boy had wavy brown hair and bright blue eyes. He looked about the same age as Roll.

The boy turned to Sofia. “Sofia, glad to see you back.” He then turned to Kevin. “And you must be Kevin then.” The boy stuck out his hand. “I’m Rock, Roll’s brother.”

Kevin shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet you… wait your names are seriously Rock and Roll?”

“See?” Sofia exclaimed, directed at the Light twins. “I’m not the only one that finds that odd!”

The twins laughed. When their laughter died down, Rock responded “Okay, fine, so it’s a bit odd. What can we say? We had musical parents!”

“A musical scientist?” Kevin mused.

“Sure!” Roll answered giggling. “You ever watch Rocky Horror?”

“Dad and Minerva should be out in a second,” Rock said, bringing the topic back on track. “They’re just running some tests.”

As he said that, a commotion erupted in the other room. The treadmill had, essentially, self-destructed. It could not keep up with Pit’s speed. The belt had unhinged itself and flew across the room, causing the two scientists to duck. Pit didn’t anticipate the belt falling out from under him, so he ended up slipping and also went flying across the room, crashing into the wall. Everyone in attendance looked towards the crash site, concerned, before Pit held a thumbs up. The female scientist turned and saw the new arrivals through the window, and indicated such to the man, before turning to Pit and saying something, indicating to the door.

“I think they’re pretty excited,” Roll added, ending the lull. “We’ve never seen an angel before.”

“First time for us too,” Sofia said, “at least of Pit’s kind. Unless you’ve seen angels before and you’re holding back on me Kev.”

“Yeah, first time, also since when am I Kev?”

“Since right now.”

The door to the room opened and in through stepped the man and woman. “Ah, Sofia, you’ve returned with Kevin,” the man said.

“Indeed, Dr. Light,” Sofia responded.

The man stuck out his hand, which Kevin shook. “I’m Thomas Light, owner and main scientist here at Light Laboratories. This,” referring to the woman, “is my assistant Minerva. And you’ve already met my children.”

“Pleasure.”

“So what do you think of Pit?” Sofia asked.

“He’s fascinating!” Minerva exclaimed. “He’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before, not even the creatures that you’ve introduced us to. By all accounts he should be a normal human, aside from the wings, of course, and yet he just isn’t.”

“You know, Viridi has said that exact thing to me before,” Pit remarked, returning from the other room. Looking around, he realized that Kevin and Sofia were here. “Oh hey, guys.”

Sofia gave a curt nod, while Kevin gave a salute and snarked, “Nice fall.”

“Eh, I’ve had worse. Oh! Before I forget, I thought of another potential name for our team last night:  _ the  _ **_Power Rangers_ ** !!!”

Kevin, Sofia, and Rock (and Minerva, albeit a bit quieter) simultaneously chimed in, saying: “Taken.”

Pit looked incredulously disappointed. “Again? Who keeps stealing my good name ideas and using them before me?”

“Anyways,” Sofia interjected, steering the conversation back to its main purpose, “Minerva, is everything set up with the simulator?”

“Yep! If you’ll follow me, we can get everything set up!” Minerva motioned for the others to follow her.

“I think I’ll leave you all to your activities,” Dr. Light said. “I have other business to attend to at present time. Minerva, I leave all the goings on of Sofia and her friends to your capable hands.”

“Certainly Doctor.”

With a smile and a nod, Doctor Light walked off down the hallway as the rest of the troupe proceeded in the opposite direction.

“So,” Kevin asked, “I keep hearing about this simulator of yours, what is it?”

“The Live-Action Biplanar Operator,” Minerva answered, “or the LABO for short. It’s a device that can simulate reality almost perfectly, allowing for any potential situation to be tested out and prepared for.”

“... so it’s a VR headset?”

“It’s more than a VR headset. VR simulates 3D, this is like the 4D of simulators.”

“4D?” Pit wondered, confused by all the acronyms for things that Skyworld never used.

“You know, like Smell-O-Vision!” Rock chimed in.

“I beg your pardon?” Pit exclaimed, bewildered at what the hell a Smell-O-Vision could be.

“Less of Smell-O-Vision, more like a phantom pain of sorts; you’ll feel sensations that make you think that something is there, when in actuality it’s not.”

“But it doesn’t actually cause pain, right?” Kevin clarified.

“Of course not!” Minerva reassured.

“Only pain caused by others,” Sofia teased, “so both of you better watch out.”

The group reached the area of the LABO. Rock and Roll departed to an observation deck off to the side as the rest entered the main chamber: a large bright white room that looked almost like an auditorium at a pristine private school. In the middle of the room, a platform rose up with what appeared to be pizza boxes. Sofia walked over to the platform, grabbing one of the boxes and putting it on like a backpack while sliding a visor of sorts over her eyes.

Kevin looked incredulous. “I’m sorry but is this simulator made out of cardboard?”

“Not the entire simulator, no,” Minerva replied. “Just the harness! Now go, put it on!”

Kevin and Pit looked at each other and shrugged, each putting on their respective boxes. With some minor adjustments by Minerva to make sure the device was on right, everyone was ready to enter the simulation. An okay from everyone sent Minerva up to the control room to set everything in motion.

“Forgive me for asking,” Pit said, “But what exactly are we doing in this simulation?”

“Oh yeah! I guess I never did explain it,” Sofia realized. “Sorry about that! Basically, we’re going to be testing out our skills against one another.”

“Like we did last night?” Kevin asked.

“Right. Except in a less hostile situation. It’d be best to really know what we can do if we’re to work with each other most effectively.

“Makes sense to me,” Pit reasoned.

“Oh, just one thing Pit,” Minerva’s voice boomed over the PA.

“Yeah?”

“I’ll ask you if you can refrain from using your super speed. Considering the damage done to the treadmill, I don’t want to take the chance of potentially doing harm to the LABO equipment.”

“Fine,” Pit grumbled. “But then that makes this not a test of our full potential anymore.”

“Well,” Sofia responded, “judging from last night I’d say our full potential would be lethal, which I hope we wouldn’t be using on each other anyway. We can save that for the training dummies and sandbags.”

“Fair enough,” Pit admitted.

“Alright, we all set then?” Minerva asked.

“Ready!” The three heroes answered.

Minerva flipped the switch, and the white room around them began to fade away.

 

* * *

 

 

As the darkness subsided, Kevin looked around to realize he was in the middle of a medieval castle, specifically the dining hall. He was sat at a large table with a great feast before him.

“Ah, Alfegard Castle, nice choice,” Kevin heard Sofia’s voice ring out from nearby him, but he couldn’t see her.

“Hey, are you guys around here? I can’t see you,” Kevin probed what appeared to him as an empty hall.

“If you’re also sitting at a table full of delicious looking food, then yes,” Pit responded.

“Yep, that’s where I am.”

“Then we’re all here,” Sofia confirmed. “We just can’t see each other, for whatever reason. Minerva, is this a glitch in the LABO?”

“Oh! No! It’s no glitch!” Minerva’s voice echoed on the stones of the castle. “It’s on purpose.”

“Minerva?” Sofia asked, her tone becoming sterner.

“I know you said you wanted strict one on one battles, but those can get so boring, and besides, Pit and Kevin got a chance to do that last night. So I thought why not spruce it up a little?”

“Oh no,” Sofia said, undoubtedly holding her head in her hands.

“Hey remember earlier when you said I shouldn’t be scared?” Kevin reminded in the general direction of Sofia’s voice, “That doesn’t really apply anymore right?”

“Oh, you guys worry too much,” Minerva chided. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a little game I thought up.”

“What’s the game?” Pit queried.

“Well, as you can see, or, well, can’t see, you’re all invisible to each other.”

“Yeah, we got that part,” Kevin answered.

“In a moment, you’ll all be teleported to different parts of the castle, and you will have to find each other and engage in battle!”

“How do we do that?” Sofia wondered.

“By following each other’s voice! I have the intercoms in the visors set to become louder the closer you are to someone.”

“But couldn’t someone just stay quiet for a really long time and win?”

“Yeah, or all three of us do it?” Pit added.

“Well, I have a remedy for that!” The heroes could hear a shuffling of papers before Minerva continued. “You’ll have to talk, because I’m going to force you all to answer icebreaker questions!”

The three sat in silence for a moment, before all simultaneously shouting, “...WHAT?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as indicated by the title having a "Part I" in it, and the fact that the chapter ended kind of abruptly, this is a multi-part story. All of the stories from this point forward will be like this. Most will be two-parters, coming out over the course of a weekend. This is coming out in the middle of the week, however, because I wanted new content near immediately for the new launch. But starting next Saturday and Sunday, the two-parter schedule will be consistent, hopefully. When the stories run over the two chapter structure, meaning they take over the course of multiple weekends to tell, that's when you know it'll be big.
> 
> Basically, I'm doing this style because I want to emulate the feeling of being a kid and watching superhero cartoons, where you had to wait a week in order to find out the next story and see the new "monster-of-the-week". These day breaks are essentially the commercial breaks. So, if you want the full authentic experience, go watch some toy or snack food commercials for the next 24 hours (I'm kidding, you don't have to do that)
> 
> After these 24 hours, we'll be right back to "Getting to Know You!" Stay tuned!
> 
> Comments and criticisms are welcome, as always!


	10. Chapter VIII - Getting to Know You (part II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The heroes have adventures in the simulator!

Before he could even properly react further, Pit found himself transported to another spot in the castle. It seemed to be a hallway of some kind. Mounted on the wall were ornaments of battles: swords, shields, the like. Pit even could swear he saw something that looked like a giant chicken’s head mounted on the wall, like a trophy from a hunt. Heh, if only Viridi could see this, she’d flip. He walked over to the wall, tracing the grooves made by the stone bricks.

“Alright,” Minerva’s voice echoed. “Shall we get on with the other aspect of this game?”

“You mean the icebreaker part?” Kevin responded. The voice sounded no louder than normal; if what Minerva said was true, then Kevin wasn’t near. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like you have anything better to do in the meantime until you all meet up again. Which reminds me, when you do eventually meet up and start battling, you’ll be able to see your opponent in a red outline. For convenience.”

“Well thank you for that at least. Can we also just skip the questions and do a normal icebreaker thing? Y’know, for convenience?”

“Like what?”

“I dunno, Truth or Dare? What normal people do.”

“Oh no, uh uh,” Sofia quickly countered. Her voice also wasn’t any louder. Dang, he must not be near anyone. Pit looked around as Sofia continued, and got an idea. “Truth and Dare I don’t do.”

“What, you chicken Soph?” Kevin shot back.

“Not as much as you probably are. And since when am I Soph?”

“ _Since right now_.”

“As much as I’m entertained by this banter,” Minerva interrupted, “I’ve got a stockpile of questions that don’t have answers and I want answers. Since Pit is the oldest, I figured I would ask him the first question, so I leave the decision to proceed to him.”

“Eh, sure. Why not?” Pit answered, to the groans of Kevin. “Can I ask one thing first?”

“Sure, what is it?”

“The objects around us in the virtual environment. Can we use them?”

“Definitely. I presume that you would normally use your environments in your actual battles, so feel free to use this one to your advantages.”

“Awesome!” Pit reached up on the wall and pulled down one of the swords. If these were virtual swords, then they would only cause virtual damage: better than the real damage his arrows could cause. And besides, pinning someone to the wall looks 10 times cooler with a sword than it does with an arrow.

As it would happen, the sword that he pulled was actually an activator for a secret passage. Pit smiled in amazement; humans seem to have finally caught up to the gods’ levels of hiding secrets in their buildings. Now if only they could learn to enjoy hot springs too. As he sprinted down the passage, minding carefully to not go too fast (to make sure the machinery didn’t break), he continued: “Okay, fire away.”

“Alright! Question one. For Pit. ‘If you could have an endless supply of any food, what would you get?’”

“Easy. Doughnuts… or maybe Ice Cream… or Cake… or Melons… Or Sushi…”

“Wait,” Kevin asked in disbelief, “you don’t know what China is, but you know what sushi is? China’s right next to Japan!”

“What’s this about not knowing China?” Sofia wondered.

“Oh, last night, just before you showed up. He crashed into a Chinese restaurant, nearly choked on a fortune cookie.”

“Aww, Pit,” Sofia and Minerva simultaneously said, with a tone of pity. Pit didn’t catch that, however, as he was still too preoccupied thinking about the question.

“... maybe a nice roast … or hamburgers?”

“He knows what hamburgers are too?!?” Kevin once again shouted in surprise.

“Are these really such big surprises Kevin?” Minerva inquired.

“Yes! He didn’t even know what _a car_ was before yesterday!”

“...wow.”

Pit still remained oblivious. “Can we come back to that question later? I need more time to think.”

Minerva chuckled. “Okay, it seems you were really mulling it over there. I get that. So many good foods out there!”

“Right? How can I choose?” Pit now looked back down the passage from where he came. It was only then he realized how far he actually traveled absentmindedly: he couldn’t even see the entrance he used. “Geez, how long is this thing?” he muttered, before seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. “Ah, finally.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sofia could hear that last muttering loud and clear, surprising her, since considering how loud Pit’s voice had been in her ear the moment before, she feared she might have gone slightly deaf.

Though it sounded like he was on top of her, considering the loudness to proximity idea, she knew he wasn’t in the same room as her. He was actually beneath her. Sofia had found herself placed in the library of the castle, and due to many a free time spent exploring this virtual castle, she knew that a secret passageway from one hallway to another on the opposite side of the castle ran right beneath the library.

She considered about going after him, but she ultimately decided against it. She was happy in the library; it’s the room that she visited the most, spending hours poring over the trove of books they had… which is what she was going to do right now. Moving over to a shelf she hadn’t taken from in a while, she pulled out a textbook-sized read on ghosts and other paranormal sightings throughout history: good for a good laugh at how inaccurate most people’s depictions of ghosts and demons actually were. She found a comfy chair and settled in for the long haul, randomly opening to the page on “The Amityville Horror”: oh boy that mess.

“Sofia, you’re up next!” Minerva chimed in, “You ready?”

“Yes, but I have one question of my own: why did you make the nearby someone voice so loud?”

“Wait, you’re nearby someone?” Pit exclaimed. “Who?”

“I’m not telling! It’d ruin the element of surprise!”

“Fine.”

“Oh is it too loud?” Minerva responded. “I’ll turn it down for next time.”

“What do you mean next time?” Kevin blurted out.

“Doesn’t matter,” Sofia answered for Minerva. “Continue.”

“Okay! For Sofia…” A small pause, before Minerva sputtered, obviously trying to hold back a laugh. “I know the answer already, but I’m going to ask anyway. Actually, I’m going to ask Kevin and Pit this: what show do you think Sofia binged ‘embarrassingly’, yes it actually says embarrassingly here, fast on Netflix most recently?”

Sofia’s face dropped. “Oh god no please.”

“What’s a Netflix?” Pit asked.

“... okay, I’m just going to ask Kevin that,” Minerva clarified, “I’ll introduce you to Netflix later.”

“Hmm…” Kevin pondered. “I would say, like, Stranger Things or 13 Reasons Why or the Marvel shows or something like that, but those seem too mainstream for you.”

“You’ll never get it,” Minerva warned.

Sofia buried her head in her hands. “I’m starting to wish that we did do Truth or Dare now. Not even Dracula goes for the jugular like this.”

“Sense8?” Kevin asked.

“Nope!” Minerva answered.

“Series of Unfortunate Events?”

“Nada.”

“House of Cards?”

“Nyet.”

“Alright, I give up.”

“Sofia?”

Sofia sighed. “She-Ra.”

“All 13 episodes in one day,” Minerva added. “I know, I was with her.”

“Huh, how about that?” Kevin remarked. “Didn’t expect that from you! Doesn’t seem like your kind of show.”

“I like good shows. She-Ra is good.” Sofia answered.

“Fair enough.”

“Can we move onto the next question now? And not go for my jugular with another question please?” Sofia pleaded, returning to her book.

Minerva laughed, “Okay, I promise I won’t. So, onto Kevin.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin had been wandering around the halls of this castle for some time, he felt, holding a sword he picked up after hearing the okay from Minerva to use the virtual weapons on the wall. He wasn’t sure where anyone else was, none of them seemed to be getting louder.

“Kevin, are you ready for your question?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Alright. In an effort to make it up to Sofia some I’ll try and find an embarrassing one for you too.”

“Thank you, Minerva,” Sofia said in a sickly sweet tone.

“Oh come on, She-Ra isn’t even that embarrassing! I watched the entirety of it too!” Kevin retorted.

“In one day? On the premiere day?” Minerva asked.

“Well, no. But fairly quickly! And yeah, it was a good show!”

“So that’s three She-Ra fans among us then! We gotta convert Pit at some point then.”

Kevin could hear Sofia’s giggling getting slightly louder. He had to be approaching her. Or she him. Or both each other. Kevin wasn’t sure which was most applicable; the invisibility thing was just inconvenient.

“Okay, I have a question for you,” Minerva continued, as she finished shuffling some papers to find the perfect one. “Who was your childhood celebrity crush?”

“Does it count if I had a crush on the character, so by proxy I would have a crush on the actress?”

Minerva considered this for a moment. “Sure, why not?”

“Easy then. And this is actually a real easy, unlike Pit’s: Rose McIver as Summer Landsdown, Power Rangers RPM.”

“A Power Rangers fan too?”

“Hey, I’m a boy growing up in the mid-2000s, of course I’m a fan of Power Rangers.”

“Fair. You and I are going to have to talk more after this, we seem to share a lot of interests.”

“You a Power Rangers fan too?”

“Hey, I also grew up in the mid-2000s.”

“What about you Soph? You a secret Power Rangers fan too?”

“No, not really Kev. Not really my style.”

Sofia’s voice was closer this time. Kevin turned back to a door that he had just passed, the voice seemed to have been from the other side of it, not even from intercom but the actual voice. Smirking, he crept up to the door and stepped inside.

 

* * *

 

 

“Well, I guess I’m up next,” Minerva figured after a while of silence. “Okay, my question to myself is: ‘how much does a polar bear weigh?’” She paused for dramatic effect. Sofia knew exactly where this was going, and she didn’t like it. Instinctively rolling her eyes, she braced for impact. “Enough to _break the ice_.” She wasn’t braced well enough. A groan of pain slipped out. “Oh come on Sofia, it wasn’t that bad!”

“To me it was.”

“Piddle paddle. That was a good joke, right guys?” Silence from Kevin and Pit. “Guys?”

This caused Sofia some concern. They could just be trying to be sneaky, but it didn’t seem in their nature. They were both the bold and brash type. Sofia put the book she was reading aside and stood up.

“Minerva? Is this on purpose too?”

“No! I wouldn’t have done something like this! What fun would it be if you can-can-can-can-can-can-can…”

Okay, something was definitely wrong. A glitch of some kind. The system hadn’t had this many participants in it before, so maybe it was an overload problem. No biggie. Sofia went to lift her visor off when a voice interrupted her.

“Question: what do you fear most?”

The voice was deep and somewhat demonic. Something was definitely up. Glitches don’t talk.

A creaking caught Sofia’s attention that brought her gaze down to the first floor of the library. A door that she knew was closed was open. Creeping carefully down the stairs, she peeked to see if it lead to where it normally did. To her surprise, there was only darkness on the other side of the door.

Once again, the voice asked her, “What do you fear most?”

Suddenly, a realization struck her, and she knew what was going on. Her eyes rolled. A certain somebody would have to get a talking to as soon as she left the simulation. But there was the issue of the door.

‘What do you fear most?’ Sofia figured that whatever that was supposed to be was on the other side of that door, waiting somewhere out in that darkness. Sofia knew what she would find there, she’s known exactly what for the past 8 years. And yet, the prospect to find out if this really was accurate was too strong. Hesitantly, she stuck her head through the darkness to see.

On the other side was a small, suburban neighborhood in New Connecticut. In front of her was a Craftsman style house, with a nice garden, a gazebo, and a big oak tree with a swing hanging from its branches. A light fog fell over everything, cut through by the bright full moon.

This was enough for Sofia to confirm what she thought. “Nope, not dealing with this,” she bluntly stated as she slid off her visor. That someone needed a very good talking to.

 

* * *

 

 

Pit stumbled out of the tight, cramped passageway and into a sprawling, open field, falling directly on the ground. Okay, that was odd. Dusting himself off as he stood, he glanced around and finally got a good look at his surroundings. He was shocked when he realized: the rolling green fields, the rocky hills, the salty sea air… he was back in Greece, somehow.

Confused and gripping to the sword he still held tightly, he walked forward through the fields, eventually stopping by a flock of sheep. He bent down, petting one of them (after years of association with Viridi, he had learned how to properly pet every creature in existence).

“Hiya little simulation guy. You’re a fluffy one aren’t you?”

Pit looked up, and saw a figure standing a hilltop away from him. Even though the fields were in broad daylight, the figure seemed to be constantly in a shadow. Standing up, he waved to the figure, who did nothing in return.

“Hello!” the angel called out, but still no reply. Well, Pit figured, it was probably high time to see who this was. Grabbing his sword, he approached the figure.

As he got closer, he began to see more details: wings, messy hair, a toga… the figure looked exactly like him in every way, except dark. The wings, the hair, the toga, all of them were black, and his irises, unlike Pit’s sky blue ones, practically glowed a haunting red.

“What the?” was all Pit could say before he suddenly found himself being held in a chokehold by his dark counterpart.

“Hey me,” said counterpart taunted, echoing a voice very much like Pit’s own, “Remember me?” No response from the angel, due to the chokehold. “Don’t bother, it was rhetorical, of course you do.”

It was true, Pit did remember who this dark version of him was, or at the very least what he represented: a dark time in Pit’s past that he, for the most part, would have liked to forget. How the hell this showed up in the middle of a simulation, he had no clue, but he did not like one bit of it. He needed to break out, and soon.

“It’s been a long time. You never call, you never write… well, we both know you can’t do the latter.” Pit started to try and squirm out of the hold, to little success. “What? Don’t like talking to me?” The dark apparition scoffed. “Fine, then I’ll be brief.” He leaned in close to Pit’s ear. “One day soon, he’s coming back. You and I both know that. It is only a matter of time… you better be ready to take me back when that day comes.”

As his dark counterpart said this, Pit managed to break free of his grasp and began to roll down the hill, when...

“Pit, what happened?” Minerva’s voice rang out over the PA.

Pit looked around again, he was no longer on the fields that he just was; he was back in the simulator room, white walls and everything. What just happened? What did his double mean about someone returning? Whatever it was, it left him spooked. Getting a hold on himself again, he saw Sofia and Kevin still walking around, lost in their own virtual fantasy worlds. Were they having experiences like him?

The angel stood up, answering: “What do you mean?”

“Did you run too fast? I asked you not to!”

Pit looked over his shoulder and realized what she was talking about; the pack on his back was completely busted. “Oh, no! I rolled down in hill, inadvertently. That’s probably how this happened.”

“Hmm, it should be fall-proof, but then again I never did test it against angels before.” Minerva pondered this for a few moments, before continuing, “Ah well. Nothing to be done. You can come out if you want, Pit. We’re pretty much done anyways.”

“But I didn’t get the chance to battle Kevin and Sofia.”

“No one got the chance to fight, there was some weird glitch in the system. I can’t explain it.”

Pit looked back at the other two still in the simulation. “Should I get them out?”

“Nah, they should come out in a few minutes.”

“Alright.”

As Pit exited the room, Minerva added, “So, did you ever figure out which food you’d want an endless supply of?”

Pit had the sudden realization that he hadn’t put any more thought into the question since it was first posed. Then just as suddenly, a lightbulb went off in his mind: “A sandwich of everything!”

Minerva chuckled. “At once?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Your eyes might be bigger than your stomach on this one.”

“You don’t know my stomach.”

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin was startled, to say the least, to find that opening a door in a medieval castle could lead to falling out of a locker in a high school. Furthermore, that locker was in his high school. It wasn’t his, but he recognized the hallway. It was in the west wing of the school, over by the gym.

Speaking of the gym, it sounded like a game was going on. Or, rather, one had just ended, as he could hear the Northridge High victory music blaring from here: Bob Seger’s “Shakedown.” Kevin figured he’d head there, since he turned around to see that the locker had reverted to a normal locker again, meaning no way back to the castle.

_“Shakedown, breakdown, takedown_

_Everybody wants into the crowded line_

_Breakdown, takedown_

_You're busted_

 

_Let down your guard, honey_

_Just about the time you're thinkin' it's alright_

_Breakdown, takedown_

_You're busted”_

Kevin always felt it was a strange song choice for his school. I mean, it was a song about arresting criminals. In a rich suburbanite school district like his, those didn’t come around too often. Maybe Northridge High secretly wanted to be a school in LA, wherever that was supposed to be.

He reached the gym and entered. As he expected, it was a celebration. Or, more accurately, the Homecoming pep rally. The cheer squad was up, just finishing their routine, explaining the music. He couldn’t help but turn his eyes to his girlfriend, Pauline Verducci. With her long brown hair and glimmering blue eyes made her both the envy and dream of many at the high school. Kevin felt lucky that he just so happened to be the object of her affections.

… except for this virtual version apparently. Kevin saw her walking up to and kissing someone he hadn’t seen or thought about in a long time: Mike Vincent, his old middle school bully. Weird, Kevin thought, I thought he went to Chaminade. Even weirder, he looked to the rest of the football team where they were sitting and he didn’t see himself anywhere in that crowd. This was bizarre. It’s almost as if he didn’t exist in this virtual world.

Kevin shrugged and walked towards the exit. It was odd that this simulation got so much right, and yet it didn’t get him in it whatsoever. Maybe it’s because he was in it. He didn’t know and didn’t really care. As he pushed on the door to exit the gym, a demonic voice stopped him.

“What? That’s it?”

Kevin stopped in his tracks, looking up at the ceiling, where the voice seemed to be coming from. “Huh?”

“This was supposed to be the thing you feared most!”

“... since when? And also, I’m supposed to be scared of a pep rally?”

“I didn’t know what it would be! It’s your mind the device is reading, not mine! And since I asked the question, that’s when!”

“What question?”

“‘What do you fear most?’ … I didn’t ask that question did I.”

“Not that I remember, and I feel I would have remembered something like that.”

“Dang it!”

“This just isn’t your day is it? You forget your question, you try and scare me with a pep rally…” The demonic voice simply groaned and sighed. “Look,” Kevin continued, “why don’t we start this over. Maybe start with introductions, who you are, what’s your point.”

“... Venjix.”

Kevin’s face formed into that of incredulity. “Seriously?”

Suddenly, the demonic voice disappeared, being replaced by Minerva’s instead. “I blame you for this Kevin, you got me thinking about RPM.”

“Ah ha! So we come to the truth of the matter.”

“Yeah yeah yeah have your Scooby Doo moment.”

“So, why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you try and scare me with a pep rally?”

Minerva sighed. “Again, the pep rally was not my idea. But the main purpose of this was to test your ability under great duress.”

“Did you do this with the others?”

“Yes,” she answered hesitantly, as if having some kind of revelation, before adding, more confidently, “Though I think it worked better with them.”

“Unless they too got this.”

“You’re not going to let me live this pep rally thing down are you?”

“I’m just trying to figure out why it happened.”

“It’s your mind. You should know best why it did this.”

“What do you mean it’s my mind?”

A short silence. “Uh, sciency wiency stuff.”

“Is that really the best explanation you’ve got?”

“It’s the one I’m giving.”

The conversation died at this point. The action of the pep rally had continued, leaving them in the dust, figuratively speaking. “So,” Kevin broke the silence with, “what now?”

“Well… you can leave the simulation if you want. You’re the last one in and everyone else is pretty much done anyways, with Pit back to Skyworld… or!”

“Or?”

“How would you like to actually get some battle practice in?” As she said this, all of the people turned around and began glaring at Kevin.

A grin appeared on his face. Cracking his knuckles, he replied, “That sounds like a great idea, K.”

“K?”

“Well, keeping with the RPM theming, you’re the scientist mentor training the heroes, sometimes through unconventional methods, and you have a voice-altering microphone. Therefore, Dr. K.”

Minerva chuckled. “I’ve been called worse. I’ll take it, _Ranger Operator Series Red_.”

Kevin laughed at that remark. “Okay, maybe that’s taking it a bit too far.”

“You’re right, too cumbersome. I’ll just stick to Kevin. So, are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

“Alright! Let the Northridge High Rumb-” Minerva was interrupted by what sounded like angry knocking behind her. “On second thought, let’s take a raincheck on that fighting training.”

“What? Why?”

“Can’t explain. Most I can say is that someone else wasn’t happy about my ‘unconventional methods.’”

Kevin grumbled. “Fine, but you owe me a training at some point, and let’s not have a blaster in the refrigerator be the next ‘unconventional method’, Doc.”

Minerva laughed. “No promises. And the training will happen, definitely. Oh, as you’re going, in the lobby I have a little gift for you.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah! It’s an intercom system! For keeping in touch with all of us more easily, since Pit doesn’t have a phone… at least I don’t think he does.”

“Huh, thanks, Minerva!”

“Don’t mention it. Think of it as a sorry for a lackluster scare… even though it was your own fault.”

“I’m going to need to see some of that sciency wiency before I can pass judgment on that one.” Minerva giggled as Kevin pushed open the doors to the gym… only to realize he was still in the simulation. “Uh, how do I get out?”

 

* * *

 

 

“Oh! Slide off the visor.” Minerva was nearly interrupted again by the knocking. She turned to the door. She knew who was on the other side. She heard Kevin give his thanks before she muted the PA system, to keep the conversation private.

“Minerva, open up the door!” she heard Sofia yell from the other side.

“I’m coming! I’m coming! Hold your horses.” She reached over and popped open the door, which Sofia slid into and quickly shut. Minerva spun back around to Pit’s broken LABO pack. “Well, that was a hit and a miss.”

“Why the hell did I get one of the Boogey Packs?” Sofia angrily confronted Minerva.

“Because they were all Boogey Packs.”

“WHAT? That wasn’t part of the plan!”

Minerva spun around and placed her hand on Sofia’s shoulder. “Look, I didn’t know which pack you were going to pick, so I installed it in all three.”

The ‘it’ she was referring to was a device which acted similarly to how a Boogeyman does: it scans your mind and shows you your greatest fear. Hence the name ‘Boogey Pack”. Minerva had been able to develop the device, upon Sofia’s request for this plan, by studying the neural functions of a Boogeyman (provided by Sofia), and replicating it with computer chips; as she told Kevin, it was very sciency wiency. The plan was to get Kevin and Pit to experience this, but for what specific reason she never divulged.

“I know what seeing that has done to you before,” Minerva continued, “But I know you’re strong and you could make it through.”

Sofia leaned up against the wall. “You’re lucky I had the sensibility to throw off my visor before it got too far into it. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Minerva smiled a sad smile at the huntress, before turning back to the broken pack. “I still don’t understand why you wanted to put them through this, knowing how you react.”

“They need to know what they’re getting into. Hopefully seeing what they did dissuade them some.”

“Dissuade them?”

“This life isn’t right for people like them. Kevin has a family, Pit has the gods and goddesses.”

“Implying that you don’t have us?” Sofia fell silent. “Just because bad things have happened before,” Minerva proceeded, “it doesn’t mean they’ll happen again. You’re stronger and smarter than back then.”

“I’m still not perfect though.”

“But you’d make sure that no matter what we’re protected!”

“I don’t have to worry about that, you’re safe here.”

“That’s beside the point Sofia! You don’t have to put yourself through this!”

“It’s the only way to keep the people I care for the safest.”

Minerva closed her eyes, trying to collect herself and not blow up at Sofia’s stubbornness. She thoroughly thought of a proper response, and when she was ready to answer with a rebuttal, she opened her eyes, only to find Sofia was gone. She sighed.

Turning back to the pack for one last time, she prepared to begin work on it. As she tinkered and repaired, her mind kept repeating the last phrase Sofia said in her head: “It’s the only way to keep the people I care for the safest.” She smiled, because it proved one thing. For as long as Minerva knew Sofia, she was outwardly cold to most people. In Minerva’s memory, there was not a single person, aside from herself and the Lights, that she saw Sofia give the time of day to. But now, if even inadvertently, she admitted to an exception.

Kevin and Pit.

She finally found people to care about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are! The end of the first "episode" bunch! Hope you all liked this style, expect it more (although I hope that in the future it'll be a more accurate around noontime release).
> 
> Few things I wanted to clear up. Netflix exists in the N-Force Universe, but for obvious reasons, the Castlevania show does not. Second, the world of N-Force is based on a hypothetical map of the United States that I saw at one point, but I can't remember the link of right now. If I find it, I'll link it here at some point. And thirdly, that book about ghosts Sofia was reading, it really exists. Next time I go to my local library I'll write down the name of it and put it in here.
> 
> Tune in next time, next Saturday, for Part 1 of "The Crying Root"!
> 
> Comments and criticisms are welcome, as always!


	11. Chapter IX - The Crying Root (part I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The death of a scientist calls to action the N-Force for their first real adventure as a team.

It was a late night for Dr. Michael Hubbards, as was seeming to be the case for many of these nights. Ever since he had been hired by that woman, he’d been spending more and more time cooped up in his laboratory, an adjunct to Northridge High School. Often times he would find himself falling asleep on the keyboard of the (admittedly archaic) computers in the lab; that was the point he knew he should head home. Such was the case tonight. He wouldn’t have even woke up if it hadn’t been for a sudden pounding on the door.

Odd, he thought, it was in the early hours of the morning on a Monday, not early enough for teachers to be coming in yet though, and certainly not students. Maybe the custodial staff, he reasoned. But whatever, better not keep them waiting.

Hubbards stood up (somewhat groggily) and made his way over to the door. But when he opened it, there was no one to be found on the other side, only a large package in a cardboard box, addressed to him. Now, common sense would dictate that something should be off about the fact that a random package, which he hadn’t been expecting, no less, from an unknown source, would just show up at the doorstep of his laboratory, but, due to his recently woken state, Dr. Hubbards didn’t have the luxury of common sense. 

So, picking up the package, he shut the door and walked back to his post at the computer, tossing the package onto a lab table - he could open it at some point later, perhaps when he was leaving. By his own logic, he should have been leaving then, but this project was getting on his nerves. Soundproof clothing? What kind of scientific innovation was that? Who would use that? Nevertheless, the more he worked, the sooner he’d be done with this whole project.

Engrossing himself in his work, he had failed to notice that his tossing the box had slightly torn it open, and it was now emitting a high pitched noise, progressively getting higher and louder.

 

* * *

 

 

“Kevin? … Kevin!”

“Huh?” Kevin sat up with a start, momentarily readjusting to his surroundings. He then remembered he was in the front seat of Pauline’s car, it was a Monday morning, and they were on their way to school.

A red light afforded his girlfriend the opportunity to look at him. Pauline chuckled, “Looks like somebody has a bad case of the Mondays. How much sleep did you get last night?”

Kevin stretched. “Eh, enough.” In actuality, it hadn’t been enough. After the whole LABO thing at Light Labs, Kevin found his “N-Sense” (what he had taken to calling that burning justice inside him… at least it was better than heart-flame) pulling him into a whole situation involving a smuggling ring that took him late into the night. Of course, it probably wouldn’t have taken as long if he had the assistance of the others of his team, but he couldn’t get into contact with any of them, for whatever reason. He internally sighed just thinking of that - what good is being in a superhero team if he can’t get some backup from said team? Speaking of his N-Sense though, it seemed to be acting up again. But Kevin figured he would have to ignore it for now, he couldn’t just not go to school to be a hero… as tempting as that path seemed.

As Kevin let out a yawn, Pauline stifled a laugh. “Clearly not enough, sleepyhead. Wanna stop at the Jackie’s and get a coffee before we get to school?”

Kevin tried to shake the sleepiness away and replied, “No, I’ll be fine. Serious. What were you saying?”

“We were in the middle of review for the Bio test when you drifted off.”

“Ah, gotcha.”

“I was asking you what melatonin did?”

“Melatonin,” Kevin answered, sleepiness slowly taking over him again, “the powerhouse of the cell.”

Pauline giggled in disbelief. “No, not Mitochondria, Melatonin! Not cells, hormones!”

“Powerhouse of the hormone.”

Rolling her eyes, Pauline continued, “No, silly, melatonin is… what the hell?”

The abruptness of the tonal shift was enough to wake Kevin up completely, as he sat up and looked to where Pauline was looking. By this point, they had begun approaching the school, and a huge crowd of students had amassed out front. Kevin and Pauline knew it couldn’t be because the front doors were still locked because it was so early, they never arrived at school that early. So they knew something had to be up.

Seeing one of his fellow teammates, Kevin called out, “Yo, Sean, what’s happening?”

“Dunno!” the guy responded. “But they ain’t letting us into school.”

“Who isn’t?”

“The police!”

Kevin and Pauline turned to each other in shock, before turning back to Sean.

“Why?”

“They wouldn’t say! Just that school was canceled.”

Pauline sighed in relief, “That means the test is canceled too. Whew, that’s a relief. I wonder what happened though?”

“Yeah, it’s a good question,” Kevin replied, not really paying attention. His N-Sense was stronger than before now, he had to wonder if maybe it was related to this.

“Hey, Kev, wanna hang out at my place then, since school’s canceled?” Pauline nudged Kevin. “Maybe watch a few movies, one for me one for you… chill, you know stuff like that?”

“Yeah, sure, sounds like a goo…” Kevin stopped mid-sentence as he noticed someone in the middle of the crowd that he knew didn’t belong (aside from the police, granted), someone with dirty-blonde hair wearing all black that Kevin had been suddenly seeing a lot of this weekend. “Actually Pollie, I’m gonna have to get a rain check on that,” Kevin corrected, jumping out of the car.

“Aww, you sure? It’ll be  _ fuuun _ .”

“Sorry, it’s something I need to take care of.”

“Alright, fine. Kiss before you go?”

Smiling slightly, Kevin obliged, before turning back to the direction he was headed in the first place. As his girlfriend drove off behind him, Kevin knew something had to be up; if the police hadn’t been enough indication, Sofia Morris’ appearance at his school certainly was.

 

* * *

 

 

“You sure that this was the place they said, Minerva?”

“That’s what it said! ‘A 10-1000 at Northridge High.’”

Sofia stared ahead, slightly in disbelief, her own thoughts drowning out the crowd around her. Sure, dead bodies  _ could _ show up in a school, but they were extremely unlikely, unless whoever did it, be it the person themselves or someone else, wanted the death to be known. Whatever the reason, Sofia realized that she needed to get inside.

“Wait,” Minerva continued. “Northridge High: isn’t that wher-”

“So what, was showing up at my house not enough, you had to show up at my school now too?” a voice interrupted.

Sofia spun around in a defensive position towards the interrupter with a deer in headlights look, before dropping her guards when she realized who it was.

Minerva chuckled at the coincidence. “Speak of the Devil and he shall appear.”

Reapplying a cool demeanor, Sofia addressed Kevin: “I didn’t come here for you, idiot. Not everything is about you, you know.”

“Then why are you here?” he shot back.

“Same reason the police are.”

“Which is?”

Sofia paused, debating on the fact whether or not Kevin knew the lingo of police codes. Figuring not, and not wanting to cause more of a panic than there already was amongst the students outside (she didn’t want more of a mess on her hands), she answered: “Minerva, care to explain?”

“There’s a dead body somewhere in the school,” Minerva chirped over the intercom, to no reaction from Kevin other than confusion.

“Minerva? Where?”

“The  _ intercom _ ?” Sofia replied as if stating the obvious. After a momentary silence of realization, she sighed. “You didn’t hook up the intercom did you?”

“I had to do that?”

“Dang it, I knew I forgot something,” Minerva muttered.

“Give it,” Sofia said, holding out her hand. Kevin pulled out the system, which Sofia quickly tinkered with to get working, before handing it back.

“There, can you hear me now?” Minerva tested.

“Loud and clear, Doc.”

With a small laugh, Minerva responded, “Good to hear Kevin, hopefully this’ll be the last of my tech that doesn’t work around you.”

“No promises.” The two laughed more.

“It’s weird though,” Minerva continued, “I could hear everything you were saying loud and clear for a while now.”

“Really? Wonder why that was.”

“I dunno, but what I do know is that I’m getting ‘Melatonin: Powerhouse of the Hormone’ printed on a tee shirt somewhere.”

Though she had been confused about the sudden chumminess between the two, Sofia couldn’t help but stifle a laugh at that last part. However, time was of the essence, so she quickly transformed that laugh into a cough to get both of their attentions.

“Oh! Right,” Minerva responded, steering the direction of the conversation back to its original point. “Basically, there’s a dead body somewhere in the school.”

“Damn,” Kevin uttered, surprised. “Did it say who?”

“As far as I know no.”

“Well, that explains the police certainly,” Kevin spun around to Sofia, “but it doesn’t really explain you. This seems kind of… mundane, doesn’t it? Don’t you normally do more supernatural stuff.”

Sofia had been looking around, trying to figure out the best way to enter the school without being noticed by any officers. Seeing a ladder leading onto the roof off in a side alley, she turned to Kevin and replied, “Well, from what the police were mentioning, it seems to be a locked room mystery of sorts. If any case is gonna be a mystery, highest chance it’s going to be one of those,” before darting off towards the ladder.

Though he seemed to be a bit startled at first, Sofia noticed that Kevin quickly caught up pace with her. “Where the hell are we going then?”

“Well, we have to get past the police somehow. I figured the roof was the best place to do so.” The ladder was locked up higher than anticipated, so, thinking quick, Sofia pulled out her whip and cracked it upwards, latching onto the bottom rung and pulling the ladder downwards. She began climbing.

“What, don’t you have a permit or something to get you past police?” Sofia stopped climbing briefly and shot her companion a look of ‘Are you serious right now?’ before continuing to climb.

Minerva jokingly chided Kevin, “You know, not everything is like a TV show Kevin. There isn’t just some magic pass that allows non-police into crime scenes.”

“Yeah, there is,” Kevin retorted, “It’s called an FBI badge.”

“The FBI are just overly glorified police!”

“Not to mention it’s a felony,” Sofia chimed in.

“And breaking and entering isn’t?” Kevin shot back.

“That’s just a misdemeanor.”

“I’m scared to find out why you know this.”

By this point, Sofia had reached the edge of the roof and began scouting around. She figured that the place with the most activity (aside from the entrance of course) was most likely the place where the body was. What appeared to be that was a building over on the backside of the school, connected to the rest of the building by a long, narrow hallway.

Nudging into Kevin, Sofia asked, “Since you know this place, what’s that?”

“Oh, that’s the labs. Some big science group works there, never paid much attention to them.”

“Minerva, did Light Labs ever work with anybody here?”

“Not off the top of my head? I can give a check.” The two heroes approached the giant building when Minerva came back. “Okay, so we haven’t  _ worked _ with anyone there, but I do have information on who works there.”

“Lay it on us,” Kevin answered, as the two reached the wall of the building and began searched for a way in. Sofia noticed that shattered glass littered the roof beneath their feet, so she looked up and realized that all the windows were shattered: a way in. Pointing it out to Kevin, the two tried to figure out a way in as Minerva shared what she found.

“So apparently it’s run by this group known as Digregorio Humanodynamics, shady looking group, I think that’s why we didn’t work with them. Their mission statement seems to be ‘working to fully understand the human bodies’ interactions with all forces’. As I said, shady.”

“Sounds like some kind of shell corporation,” Sofia mused. She had no luck trying to find a way up to the window. Suddenly, Kevin grabbed her arm and she felt what seemed like a shockwave beneath her feet push her upwards, and suddenly the two of them were at the edge of the window. Confused, she turned to Kevin for an explanation, who simply waved his gloved hand.

“Wow, that’s some glove,” Minerva remarked, having been interrupted by the sudden boom over the intercom. “Though I think you can’t really sneak around anymore.”

While the both of them climbed inside, Kevin replied, “Course we can, I’ve played enough stealth games to know that sometimes the best way to sneak around is to get the people you’re avoiding to look somewhere else.” A small surprised smile appeared on Sofia’s face; maybe he was better made for this business then she gave him credit for. The brief moment passed as she began to focus on the room that lay in front of her.

They had found themselves on the inside of a decently sized laboratory, yet a good portion of the amenities of one seemed to be missing: no beakers, no graduated cylinders, but there was a fume hood and other metal objects. Basically, all the missing items just so happened to be made of glass, it seemed. There also just so happened to be glass covering the floors, much like how the glass from the windows had fallen to the roof below it. Wanting to confirm her suspicions, she picked up a fairly large shard of glass with markings on it off the ground. “Pyrex” it read: her suspicion was confirmed.

“Something caused all the glass in the room to shatter.”

Kevin looked around at the sheer amount of layers of glass on the floor. “I figured that much. I don’t think glass just appears out of nowhere.”

Minerva chimed in snarkily, “It could have been a giant amount of sand that suddenly heated up for whatever reason.”

“So this laboratory is a giant kiln then?” Sofia snarked back.

“Well, it can’t be a portable heat source. After all, you know what they say: it’s not delivery, it’s Digregorio’s.”

Sofia groaned. “I hate you so much.”

“I’m here all night folks. Tip your waiters.”

Rolling her eyes, Sofia rounded to the other side of the table, where she found the body. It was not a pretty sight. There was bleeding from the ears, and the eyeballs had seemingly popped, leaving just empty sockets. Other than that though, not much had actually changed with the body, certainly not burning. “I think the kiln theory is out.”

“Wow,” was all Minerva could say for a hot minute as Kevin walked up and began checking on the body himself. Collecting herself, she continued, “That, I presume, would be Dr. Michael Hubbards, the main scientist here.”

“I’ve heard that name before,” Kevin said. “He’s supposed to be the new Physics C teacher.”

“Well, I think they’re going to have to find a new teacher that knows both physics and calculus… and has eyes… who could have wanted him dead though?”

“Jealous physics teacher?”

“I think you could have the next great tragedy there Shakespeare,” Sofia remarked, before moving to the computer in the corner of the room. The screen had been shattered, as it too was made of glass, meaning that some digging would have to be done to figure out what was being worked on: it could indicate a motive for the killing. Making sure that any stray glass couldn’t cut her, she unplugged the computer and began to disassemble the insides, taking the motherboard to see if Minerva could make heads or tails of it.

“This might be something!” Kevin exclaimed. Sofia turned to look where Kevin was, finding him standing above the room’s trash can. Sticking out of it was a large cardboard box. The outside read “Dr. Hubbards” and nothing else. The inside, however, revealed something more.

“What the hell is that?” Sofia asked, pulling on the greenish-brownish substance that coated the interior of the box.

“By just looking, I think it might be plant matter, I’d have to test it more though,” Minerva wagered as an answer.

“We have a lot to go over,” Sofia added, which elicited an affirmative noise from Minerva. The trio were distracted, though, by the sudden noises of people approaching the lab door from the hallway.

“Well, no time like the present to get to that looking, right?” Minerva stated, urging the subtext of “GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE”. Sofia and Kevin didn’t need to be told twice, as the two bolted towards the open window and jumped out.

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin slumped against the booth of the local diner, the Zone B, tired as all get out. He and Sofia had just sprinted all the way from the school to the diner without stopping, and it seemed that none of the police had noticed their departure, or at the very least didn’t think them important enough to follow. Since it was still early enough, they decided to split some breakfast, ordering a platter (4 pancakes, two sides of hash browns, an omelet, and assorted breakfast meats) between them.

“So, what’s the plan then?” Kevin asked, shoving a maple syrup drenched wedge of pancake into his mouth.

Sofia had her own mouth full with hash browns, so Minerva answered. “Well, the main priority is to get all that stuff back to Light Labs. I can analyze that plant matter and try to get whatever’s on that motherboard off.”

Having swallowed, Sofia chimed in, “I can do that, Hammer’s somewhere nearby.”

“Alright,” Kevin agreed, “what should I do?”

“Don’t you have someone waiting for you Kevin?”

Kevin was confused for a moment. “Do I?”

“Someone to watch some movies with?”

The realization hit him. “Polly!” With the craziness of what had just happened, he had completely forgotten about Pauline’s offer.

“Who’s Polly?” Sofia wondered.

“Pauline Verducci, my girlfriend, she wanted to go back to her house and watch some movies, but then I saw you there so I had to put that off.”

Sofia sniggered, questioning in disbelief, “You have a girlfriend?”

“Is that such a surprise?”

“I mean, your mom wanted you to date me, so…”

“Oh… yeah… she doesn’t know about me and Polly.”

Minerva gasped with mock shock. “For shame, Kevin Keene, not telling your mother about your romantic life.”

“Aw give me a break Doc. She would never let me hear the end of it if I did tell her.”

“She’s just excited for her little boy, Kev,” Sofia teased.

“Ugh, I can only take so much,” Kevin sighed, standing up and throwing enough cash to cover his half and tip on the table. “It’s a two-front war with no hope for me.”

Sofia and Minerva burst out laughing. “Okay, okay, fine, we’ll let you go,” Minerva said through giggles, “ _ for now. _ ”

“We’ll let you know what we find,” Sofia added, “now that we know your intercom is on.” Kevin nodded in response and began walking away, giving a little wave goodbye. As he reached the door, he could hear Sofia whisper via the intercom in the most teasing voice she could, “ _ Go get ‘em, Tiger, _ ” before he heard both girls fall into another giggle fit. Rolling his eyes, he pushed open the door and walked outside: he had some movies to watch.

 

* * *

 

 

Noticing that the police had been distracted by something, a shadowy figure slunk their way into the laboratory of Dr. Michael Hubbards. Avoiding all the glass and other items strewn about the room, they made their way across the room, knowing exactly what they were searching for. Arriving at the computer, the figure smirked, only for the smirk to very quickly disappear. The motherboard, where was it? No, that’s impossible, someone couldn’t have taken it. No one could have known what was on it.

Angered, the figure picked up the (relatively) empty chassis of the computer and hurled it across the room. The computer smashed into a slew of pieces against the wall as the figure slunk back out of the room. Someone would have to pay for the death of Michael Hubbard, and no one was going to stand in the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy poop, the update that is long overdue! Okay, so some housekeeping first before I do my usual spiel.
> 
> So, that whole thing about coming out every weekend? Yeah... look how well that turned out. I'm dropping that aspect, and instead, am I going to be more primarily focusing on just one "episode" at a time, not really worrying about deadlines for them.
> 
> Secondly, instead of just two parts to every story, stories will be as many parts as needed to tell the story. However, I still intend to have them still fit somewhere between two and four parts, for the most part. If it's a big event it'll be more, but we'll get to that when we get to that.
> 
> Now with all that out of the way, and hopefully this set up meaning more N-Force content semi-regularly, onto the normal ending stuff!
> 
> This adventure has been in the works for a while, pretty much since I had the hiatus. It's inspired by a certain show that I grew fond of, if anyone can guess it, feel free to try, maybe I'll have something for them, I dunno, it's early in the morning and I haven't thought things out thoroughly yet.
> 
> "The Crying Root" part 2! Coming soon!
> 
> Comments and criticisms are welcome, as always!


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